


The Alpha Next Door

by Destielshipper4Cas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha Dean, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe – Neighbors, Bottom Castiel, Bottom Castiel/Top Dean Winchester, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, First Time, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mutual Pining, Omega Castiel, Omega Verse, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Top Dean, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:55:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 36,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22087501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destielshipper4Cas/pseuds/Destielshipper4Cas
Summary: When Cas is placed in WitSec, he gets a fake secondary gender designation to go along with his new name, ‘Jimmy.’ All he has to do until the boss of the omega trafficking ring he escaped is behind bars is keep a low profile, always apply his alpha scent, and not fall in love with an alpha. Well—two out of three ain’t too bad…Dean has never had a crush on an alpha before. Along comes his new neighbor, Jimmy, an alpha who is alphasexual. There’s just something about him, and to his utter confusion, he finds himself falling for an alpha for the first time in his life.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2044
Kudos: 3165
Collections: Favorite Destiel Fanfictions, The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	1. Chapter 1

Dean had been happy when the young beta couple from next door moved out. Maybe he was just getting old, but they had annoyed the heck out of him with their loud music at any time of the day (or night) and the way they had used his yard as a shortcut.

So, he had been elated when an alpha of about his own age moved in. Jimmy definitely didn’t play loud music in the middle of the night, and he probably wouldn’t even dream of taking a shortcut.

He was standoffish and didn’t like talking or interacting with… anyone apparently. Or maybe it was just Dean. In any case, Jimmy had barely said more than his name when Dean had first tried to make contact, and had even refused his help carrying the boxes inside the house.

There were no friends to help Jimmy move, so Dean had been left watching him from his window go back and forth between the van and the house, all by himself.

Ever since that first day, Dean hadn’t seen Jimmy more than a couple times. Until one day, when a package was delivered to Dean.

He was waiting for his new headphones to arrive, so he didn’t think twice about it when he ripped the package open. Only when he took out the fake knot did he realize that there must have been a mistake. It was probably intended for the omega down the street.

A look at the address made Dean do a double take. This was addressed to _Jimmy_.

Wow.

Dean would not have pegged Jimmy as alphasexual. (Although he was rather small for an alpha.)

That might be the reason why he kept to himself. Alphas who were attracted to alphas were still harassed even today.

Or maybe he wasn’t alphasexual at all and just liked taking fake knots.

In any case, Dean now had the image of Jimmy using this sex toy in his head. Then the image was replaced by an actual _alpha_ mounting Jimmy.

Dean quickly shook his head in an attempt to get rid of those images. He really shouldn’t be thinking about his neighbor like that. Even though Jimmy was the most handsome alpha he had ever seen (objectively speaking, not that he looked at alphas like that, Dean was omegasexual through and through).

This was the perfect opportunity to show Jimmy that he was an open-minded person who didn’t care about anyone’s sexual orientation or jerk-off habits.

So, when he rang the bell, package in hand, he decided that it was long past time to offer Jimmy his friendship. As far as Dean could tell, the other alpha hadn’t made any friends here yet, and everyone knew that you needed friends when you were new to a neighborhood.

He gave Jimmy one of his big charming smiles when he opened the door, and held out the package.

“Hi there! This got delivered to me by mistake,” he informed him.

Jimmy frowned down at the package before looking back up into Dean’s eyes.

“This has been opened,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, uhm… sorry ’bout that,” Dean said, rubbing the back of his neck with the hand that wasn’t still holding the package (seriously, could Jimmy just take it already?). “I kind of opened it when I thought my headphones were inside.”

Jimmy looked unimpressed, but at least he finally took the package.

“Well then, thank you for returning it, I suppose.”

“Yeah, not like I could use it,” Dean joked and then winced. “Not that there’s anything wrong with an alpha using that,” he quickly added. “If they’re enjoying taking fake knots then that’s awesome! I mean...”

“Please stop talking,” said Jimmy, who seemed almost as uncomfortable by what Dean was saying as he was himself.

Wow, wasn’t he just great at making new friends?

“I’ll stop talking if you agree to come over for a welcome-to-the-neighborhood barbecue on Friday,” he offered, trying to salvage what he could. It would be a shame if he had ruined the friendship before it had ever gotten a chance of becoming one.

Jimmy squinted at him and tilted his head, probably trying to figure Dean out. Then he said, “I am not interested in starting a relationship right now.”

Dean just gaped at him. Jimmy was direct, he’d give him that. “Oh no, I wasn’t hitting on you,” he quickly clarified. “I’m into omegas, no offense. I just thought, you know, we’re neighbors…” he trailed off, leaving Jimmy to fill in the rest.

“I see,” Jimmy said in that deadpan voice of his. “You’re one of those neighbors.”

“One of—what?”

“Well, if it gets you to stop opening my mail…” Jimmy said, still without any inflection, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Look at that. The guy did have a sense of humor, albeit a strange one. “Funny,” Dean said with an eye-roll. “Wait—does that mean yes?”

Maybe he really _was_ great at making new friends.

Before Jimmy could change his mind, Dean said, “Great! I’m having a couple of friends over. Just come by at seven, we’ll make an alphas’ night of it.”

⁂

Cas had no idea how he had gotten roped into this. It had been so simple: lay low, wait until Mike was behind bars—oh, and stay away from alphas, who could potentially out him as an omega and thus blow his new identity.

So, how exactly had he ended up living next door to an alpha of all people? Someone in the FBI had clearly screwed up when he had chosen his new living arrangements. At least the alpha scent he had to apply to cover his own was top quality. So, Dean or his friends should have no reason to doubt that he wasn’t what he said he was.

Of course, his neighbor had to turn out to be the sexiest alpha alive. Figured. So, maybe it had been the pretty green eyes that had made Cas incapable of turning down the invitation.

Plus, for some reason, he found alphas with foot in mouth syndrome frustratingly endearing, and Dean’s babbling in an attempt not to offend him had made Cas say yes to the suggestion of an ‘alphas’ night’ before he had thought it all the way through.

He had never been invited to an alphas’ night before (mostly because he was an omega), so he had no idea what that would entail. Maybe they’d drink beer, watch porn, and he’d have to make lewd remarks about omegas. But no, Dean thought he was an alphasexual alpha (he was _half_ right at least), which meant he didn’t have to pretend to be attracted to omegas.

Still, he was rather nervous when he walked over to Dean’s house on Friday, carrying a six pack as a thank you for the hospitality.

It turned out he wouldn’t have had to worry. Dean’s brother, Sam, and best friend, Benny, who had been invited as well, turned out to be just as nice as Dean himself, and an alphas’ night in wasn’t all that different from an omegas’ night in. It wasn’t all belching contests and fighting each other to see who was the stronger alpha.

Instead, they just went inside to watch some TV together after dinner. At first, Cas had thought that Dean had picked the show about some sexy alpha doctor for his benefit. But it quickly became clear that he knew all about the characters of the melodrama, as well as what had happened in the previous episodes.

“Wait—so, the new omega doctor is his long-lost sister?” Benny asked, eyebrows arched. He was clearly not keeping up with this show, either, so at least Cas wasn’t the only one who had no idea what was happening on screen.

“Yeah, she had amnesia after the plane crash…” And off Dean went, explaining how the characters were related.

It was halfway through the second episode (when he was laughing at Dean’s imitation of the alpha’s ridiculous attempts at courting the nurse) that he realized he was actually having _fun_.

Dean was easy to talk to and even though Cas usually felt uncomfortable in the presence of strangers, especially alphas, he somehow felt… comfortable. At ease.

Maybe he could use a friend while he was stuck here after all. He’d just have to make sure not to fall for that pretty face. Luckily, Dean was safe. After all, he was into omegas and thought that Cas was an alpha.

As long as Cas made sure to regularly apply the alpha scent, there was no way that Dean would be able to sniff out that he was really an omega.

He smiled at Dean laughing out loud at a joke Cas had missed due to his musings. A quick look at Sam, who was rolling his eyes, told him that the joke couldn’t have been that funny, though.

Dean, who was sitting next to Cas, nudged him in the ribs, and Cas laughed with him—not because he had figured out what the joke was, but because Dean’s laughter was rather infectious.


	2. Chapter 2

The first few months went by quickly. Cas would have thought that time would stand still and he’d just wait around for his handler to tell him one day that—as if by magic—Mike had been put away and he could try to lead a normal life. But so far, Balthazar had just checked in to see how he was adapting to his new life.

Rather well, as it turned out, since Dean didn’t let him get too far in his head worrying about the life he’d left behind.

Since that first time, he was regularly invited to Dean, Sam, and Benny’s alphas’ nights (in or out), and whenever Cas’ nightmares got so bad that he secluded himself for a few days, Dean would come by with some excuse or other. By the time the alpha left, the memories of heat-inducing drugs and brutal alphas were all but gone.

“Just stay away from him,” Balthazar had said when Cas had first brought up the issue of living next door to an alpha.

Except he was drawn to Dean and the alpha’s kindness and didn’t _want_ to stay away from him. Dean was funny and considerate (and hot, but that was neither here nor there—neither was the fact that he smelled nice), and Cas soon discovered that not all alphas were knotheads.

Instead, Dean, at least, was a huge softie even though he would growl at you for insinuating it. For one, Dean liked showing that he cared through touches. There was _so much_ touching—a pat on the back, a chest bump (Cas’ very first in his life—he hadn’t known people outside of movies were doing that), a shoulder squeeze, a poke or a slap on the thigh if they were sitting next to each other and Dean wanted to make him aware of something… Cas had had no idea that alphas touched each other so much.

Since up to this point Cas had mostly been touched with violent intent, this felt nice. Touches that didn’t hurt, that were a way of saying ‘hey, you’re my friend and I feel comfortable touching you’ were new to Cas, but he found he liked them. He liked them a lot.

The only problem was that the more comfortable he felt with Dean, the harder it got to remember that he wasn’t supposed to be himself but ‘Jimmy Novak.’ He couldn’t risk slipping up. He almost had on a couple of occasions.

“Typical alpha,” he had said when they were watching a movie and two alphas on screen were beating the shit out of each other to impress an omega. “Why do you alphas always have to be all about brute force?”

When Dean looked at him with raised eyebrows, he quickly covered for his mistake by saying, “I’m not a ‘typical’ alpha,” using air quotes for good measure.

It wasn’t a lie. Of course, it wasn’t the whole truth either, letting Dean assume it was just the ‘typical’ part he was referring to, but Dean inclined his head and accepted the excuse. After all, he told him often enough that he was a ‘weird dorky little guy.’ Not your ‘typical alpha’ indeed…

⁂

There was just something about Jimmy. Something… intriguing. It wasn’t like Dean was spying on him or anything, but they were neighbors, so of course he had noticed some things.

For example, he had seen another alpha go into his house a couple times, but he had no idea if Jimmy was dating this guy or if it was just a booty call.

Probably the latter since Dean’s attempts at fishing for information had turned up nothing but a, “Oh, that’s just Balthazar.”

Well, thanks for the inside scoop, Jimmy, that cleared that right up. But Jimmy wasn’t really chatty when it came to his personal life anyway. He was rather good at evading questions. Dean’s best guess—from the bits and pieces that he had gotten out of Jimmy—was that he had just gotten out of a bad relationship with an asshole alpha.

Once, Dean had been up in the middle of the night and gone to the kitchen for a snack. Even though it had been 3 AM, the lights had been on at Jimmy’s house. What were the odds that the other alpha had also gone for a midnight snack?

The next time Dean saw the lights on in Jimmy’s house in the middle of the night, he decided, after failing to fall back asleep, to just go over there. It was a Friday night anyway. If neither of them could sleep, they could at least not-sleep together.

Maybe laughing about some dumb reality show together would make him sleepy. Decision made, he went over to ring the bell. He soon realized that he should have brought a flashlight since he couldn’t even find the damn bell. Motion sensors! That’s what Jimmy needed! Dean would just have to install them himself next chance he got…

⁂

Another nightmare had woken Cas up and he’d turned on the lights to ensure that it really had just been a bad dream. That he had made it out of there and was free. That Mike and his alphas couldn’t get to him here.

A quick look at the alarm clock told him that it was just past 1 AM.

And then the nightmare continued. Someone was at the door.

His fight or flight instinct kicked in immediately, pumping adrenaline through his entire body at the speed of light. At the same time, he felt as if he couldn’t move.

They had found him!

He quickly turned off the lights. Of course, that didn’t do any good—they had to have already seen that he was home.

He fumbled with his cell phone and almost dropped it.

 _Come on, Balthazar, pick up!_ He didn’t. Maybe they had gotten to him already.

He texted him a quick SOS anyway, and then there was only one thing for Cas left to do: run and never look back!

⁂

The lights suddenly went out. Maybe Jimmy had better luck at falling asleep again.

Dean was just about to head back when he saw something at the side of Jimmy’s house.

He stopped short. Was that Jimmy climbing out a window?!

⁂

Cas was halfway out the window when he realized that in his haste to get away, he had completely forgotten to take his wallet. He tried to climb back inside to get it, but slipped and fell down into the bushes.

How was he ever going to get away from them fast enough without any money? Maybe he could make it over to Dean’s…

Fighting his way out of the bushes, he was looking over his shoulder, trying to see if they had already made it inside—and ran right into someone’s arms.

Instincts kicked in and he immediately started kicking and boxing the alpha before his mind had processed what his nose was smelling: Dean.

⁂

“Ouch!” Dean said and tried to catch Jimmy’s arms to keep him from hitting him.

“Dean!” whispered Jimmy, who finally stopped trying to hurt him (which he was rather bad at. Alphas in fighting mode usually went right for the necks of their opponents, biting rather than hitting). “There’s someone at my door!”

Instead of thrashing about, Jimmy was now clutching at him like a lifeline. And that’s when Dean caught a whiff of something. Something underneath the alpha’s scent.

Dean didn’t much care for Jimmy’s scent, the same way he didn’t care for any alpha’s scent. But this… something? It had to be the scent of scared Jimmy, and as messed up as it was, Dean actually kind of liked that scent.

Protective instincts were kicking in, which was confusing because Dean shouldn’t feel protective towards another alpha. He quickly shook his head to clear it. Jimmy was clearly scared here. What kind of a sick alpha liked the scent of someone’s fear?!

“That was me,” he remembered to tell Jimmy. “I was at your door.”

That brought the other alpha up short. “You?” he repeated, letting go of Dean, and for the first time, he seemed to question Dean’s presence here. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“Well, I saw the lights on and I thought, ‘There’s another insomniac alpha. Let’s do some insomniac alpha stuff.’”

Jimmy didn’t have anything to say to that.

“So… Do you always climb out windows, or…”

Dean didn’t get to finish his question because at that moment, Jimmy’s cell phone went off. He fumbled it out of his pants pocket and Dean saw the name ‘Balthazar’ flash across the screen.

“I’m sorry, I need to…” Jimmy said and turned away to answer it.

Even though he whispered into the phone, Dean could still hear some of what he was saying, “No, everything is okay. It was just a neighbor.”

Maybe this Balthazar guy was Jimmy’s boyfriend after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Turned out Dean had been right about the asshole ex-boyfriend. Only it was a bit more than that. Mi-Mick (what kind of a name was that anyway?) had stalked Jimmy and broken into his home a couple times before he had finally moved here.

Since Jimmy’s fighting technique was seriously lacking, Dean had offered to give him lessons in self-defense to make him feel safe at home, even though Jimmy said that his ex should have no way of finding out where he had moved.

Dean occasionally taught classes for omegas at Benny’s gym, mostly to help out Benny, but also to make a few extra bucks.

Since Jimmy probably wouldn’t appreciate the insinuation if Dean invited him to an omega self-defense class, the plan was to go the gym after hours for Dean to give him private lessons.

Dean started their first lesson off by showing him how to snarl and bare his teeth at an opponent.

“I feel ridiculous,” Jimmy said.

Granted, he looked kind of dorky with his baggy gym clothes that looked more like pajamas, but they weren’t here to pick up alphas for Jimmy.

“Would you quit complaining?” Dean said. “There’s no one here.” He motioned around the empty gym. “Don’t be embarrassed on _my_ account. And if someone is trying to attack you, I’d hope you wouldn’t be too polite to bare your teeth at them, either.”

That seemed to do the trick. Jimmy showed him his teeth—which seemed more like an awkward smile, but it was a start. Dean definitely had his work cut out for him since Jimmy had to be the most harmless alpha in the world.

“That just makes me want to pet you and scratch your ears,” Dean said, trying to get a rise out of Jimmy, but Jimmy just squinted at him, so Dean suggested, “Try it with a growl.”

“What, am I a dog?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never growled at anyone before?!”

The shocked look on Jimmy’s face was answer enough and so Dean spent the next ten minutes trying to teach him how to make his growl sound more dangerous than a kitten’s purr.

“This is silly,” Jimmy finally said. “I doubt anyone would be scared off by that.”

“Not if you’re making bedroom eyes at them,” Dean agreed.

“ _What?_ I’m not making bedroom eyes at you! I’m doing the ‘intimidating look’ thing you just showed me.”

“Yeah, hate to break it to you, buddy, but the last person who looked at me like that… I got laid.”

Jimmy raised an eyebrow at that. “Didn’t know you were into alphas.”

“What? No… I’m not… I meant the last _omega_. Just, you’re not an omega, so…” When he saw the smirk on Jimmy’s face, he stopped his babbling and rolled his eyes. “You’re an ass.”

Touché. Looked like Jimmy could give as good as he got as far as verbal sparring was concerned. It was time to teach him how to win in a physical battle as well.

To warm up, they did a few laps around the gym. Jimmy was an alpha after all, so with a bit practice, he might be able to outrun an alpha attacker when push came to shove.

⁂

When Dean started chasing him around the gym, Cas realized that maybe he should have turned down Dean’s offer to teach him how to defend himself. But the prospect of being able to defend himself against Mike’s men if it ever came to that was just too good to pass up on.

Even if they never found him, just knowing that he stood a chance against them would make him feel so much safer. Plus, Dean usually taught omegas, so if other omegas could profit from Dean’s lessons, so could he.

Still, being chased around the gym by Dean was not how he had imagined this lesson to go. Dean pretended to be the attacker, which meant that this whole scenario should make Cas feel uncomfortable. Instead, the musky scent of alpha sweat was rather alluring.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Not the musky scent of ‘alpha sweat,’ but of _Dean_.

He tried to inconspicuously scent himself to see if the artificial alpha scent really was ‘water resistant’ as advertised. Of course, Dean took advantage of that moment of inattention and caught him _again_. Yeah, there was no way Cas would ever be able to outrun an alpha.

“Don’t sweat it,” Dean said. “I’m just really fast. I’ll plan in some cardio for the training sessions.”

So now they had training sessions? Cas so wasn’t the type of omega who enjoyed workout sessions and running around in circles.

Although, he _could_ get used to running around with Dean…

Apparently, Dean decided that they were warm enough for the next part of the lesson, which consisted of him showing Cas a few techniques that he could use if attacked.

Of course, it also consisted of a lot of grappling and getting into each other’s personal space.

When Dean’s scent was so distracting that Cas had trouble concentrating on what the alpha was even saying to him, Dean finally ended the lesson, clapping Cas on the shoulder and telling him that he had done a great job—which Cas assumed was just a pleasantry because he had clearly sucked. Dean had been able to overpower him easily time and time again.

“I’ll make an alpha out of you yet,” Dean joked on their way to the locker room.

It was clearly intended as teasing, so Cas made a show of rolling his eyes, but he had to keep himself from saying, _I highly doubt that_.

Instead, he said what he thought an alpha might say as a comeback to that, “I’m alpha enough, thank you very much.”

When Cas had thought about what this self-defense lesson would be like, he had imagined Dean showing him how to block an attack and maybe where to best hit his opponent. What he hadn’t expected, however, was that he would end up all sweaty and gross.

So, it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Dean pulled a towel out of his gym bag and said, “Shower room’s that way.”

Fuck his life.


	4. Chapter 4

Cas was great at coming up with excuses on the fly. Well, not really, but he was rather proud of himself for thinking on his feet in this particular situation. Only thing was—Dean kept systematically shooting down Cas’ excuses one by one.

He didn’t bring a towel? No problem, he could borrow one.

He hardly broke a sweat to begin with? Dean barely raised an eyebrow before pointing out that his face was beet red and his hair was sticking to his forehead. No way was he going to let Jimmy into his Baby like this.

He really should get going so that he’d be home in time? Dean didn’t even ask in time for what (good. Cas hadn’t come up with an excuse for that one yet). Instead, he mentioned that Cas would have to wait for Dean anyway because he was his ride.

That’s how Cas found himself, towel in hand and finally out of good excuses, in front of the shower room.

While Dean got undressed and carelessly threw his clothes onto the bench, Cas’ mind was a whirlwind.

Balthazar would have his head for taking a risk like this.

But was it really all that risky? It wasn’t like he’d start producing slick and of course Dean wouldn’t expect him to pop a knot, so there wasn’t a lot that could give him away. And that was if Dean got a look in the first place. Omegasexual alphas probably didn’t just check each other out to begin with. Plus, the stalls would provide the necessary privacy.

As long as Cas didn’t scrub off the alpha scent (which was still supposed to last him a few hours), the worst that could happen was Dean thinking his penis was a bit on the small side for an alpha— _if_ he got a glimpse, which, as Cas reminded himself, he wouldn’t.

Then there were the scars, of course, but Dean knew some of his cover story about his abusive ex, so Cas could always explain it away with his ex having gotten a bit rough. That might be a bit of an understatement, of course.

Cas had stood with his back to a mirror, looking over his shoulder to gauge how bad it was on multiple occasions and… it looked pretty bad. Michael had made sure other alphas knew exactly whose property he was. Plus, alphas paid more if they were allowed to leave marks.

It had even been infected at times and trying to reach his own back had been frustrating to say the least. Even now, in an attempt to make the scars look less red and angry, Cas occasionally tried to apply some cream, but it was almost impossible to apply it right and took him a long time.

“Hey Jim, you coming?” Dean’s voice brought him out of his thoughts.

Dean was now standing in front of him, completely naked, comfortable in his scarless skin, not a care in the world that if Cas looked down, he’d see—

No looking down! Cas focused hard on keeping his eyes at eye-level as he motioned for Dean to go ahead.

“Right behind you.” That would give him cover to get undressed without Dean seeing anything he wasn’t supposed to.

As soon as Dean stalked off to a stall with a shrug, Cas quickly stumbled out of his own clothes and then rushed to the safety of the stall next to Dean’s. He’d debated using the one on the far end, but that would probably only make Dean suspicious.

Once under the spray, Cas closed his eyes and enjoyed the water pressure. Maybe Dean had been on to something with this whole shower idea…

“Need to borrow some of my lotion?” Dean asked, which brought Cas up short.

“Uhm…” Declining would probably seem weird, so Cas said, “Yes, thank you.”

Next thing, Dean’s hand with the bottle appeared around the stall, and Cas quickly took it, fumbling with it and almost dropping it.

 _No scrubbing the scent off_ , he reminded himself and only applied a little bit so that Dean would be able to smell that he had, in fact, used his lotion.

“That was quite some workout, huh?”

Dean wanted to talk _now_? While they were standing next to each other naked, just a thin wall between them? Yes, that seemed just like Dean. And why wouldn’t he think that was the most normal thing in the world? Nothing illicit about two alphas chatting while in a public shower room.

⁂

Jimmy seemed to be one shy alpha. He had been careful to only get undressed once Dean had turned his back. Maybe he was hiding an embarrassing tattoo or something. Or maybe it was a bit weird for him, being into alphas and all. Who knew, maybe Jimmy found him attractive?

Wait—that was the wrong question. After all, you could find someone attractive without being _attracted_ to them. For example, Dean could definitely admit that Jimmy was an attractive, devastatingly handsome alpha, but Dean would never be _attracted_ to an alpha. That was just not who he was.

Chasing Jimmy had been kind of fun, though. Probably more fun than it should have been. Somewhere along the line, his alpha had started stirring within him and it had become more of a game than a lesson.

Still, that didn’t mean his alpha was _attracted_ to Jimmy because—again—his alpha was attracted to cute _omegas_ (not alphas, no matter how cute). There was plenty of evidence for how un-attracted Dean was to Jimmy.

For example, his scent. Yes! He definitely wasn’t attracted to Jimmy’s scent. Hence, even though Jimmy had awakened some confusing instincts in Dean to give chase, his masculinity and omegasexuality clearly weren’t in danger.

Just an alpha helping out another alpha. Two bros having some fun at the gym.

Of course, he’d had _fun_ at this gym before. In fact, he’d banged an omega in this very shower room once (which he so would never tell Benny about).

Deciding to put a stop to this strange line of thought, he struck up a conversation with Jimmy.

Only, Jimmy didn’t seem all that chatty, so after a few one-word answers to great conversation starters, Dean gave up and they finished the shower in silence.

Dean was just stepping out of the shower and Jimmy, back to him, was toweling off, when he caught a glimpse of the alpha’s back.

A sudden surge of protectiveness shot through him at the sight of the deep scars, which were clearly the result of an alpha marking him. Some archaic alphas used this method on omegas in an attempt to make them unattractive to other alphas, but it was forbidden as in the past, omegas have died because of this custom.

This Mi-Mick person better watch out not to run across Dean one day. No one was allowed to hurt Dean’s friends like that! Good for Jimmy to have gotten away from this abusive asshole.

Jimmy tensed all of a sudden as if he felt the eyes on him and shot a look over his shoulder at Dean, who was just standing there, staring. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, and then Jimmy scrambled to cover up and get dressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone reminded me that this fic was in need of an update, so thanks for giving me the nudge to write the next chapter! 😊
> 
> Any preference on which fic I should update next? (Well, I’ll probably update Scent-Bonded next because I already have the next chapter finished, so let’s rephrase that: Which fic should I work on? I have some free time and I can’t quite decide.)


	5. Chapter 5

Jimmy just pretended Dean hadn’t seen anything and Dean was okay to go along with the whole not-talking-about-it approach since he had no idea what to say anyway.

Maybe alphas who were in a relationship could get a bit rough with each other (it wasn’t like Dean was an expert or even knew any alphasexual alphas apart from Jimmy), but those scars… that had to have hurt like a son of a bitch. No wonder Jimmy had had to move to get away from this abusive alpha asshole.

Dean still saw the lights on at Jimmy’s place whenever he himself happened to be up at night. He would have assumed that with Dean regularly chasing Jimmy around the gym, he’d be too exhausted to be up at all hours of the night, but apparently not.

Since the last time Dean had tried to do something about it hadn’t ended well, they got into the habit of texting first.

In case the lights were on, Dean would send a quick ‘coming over’ as a warning, or he’d ask ‘u up?’ and a couple minutes later, Jimmy would come by. Their nightly meetings quickly turned to pajama parties because getting dressed just didn’t seem worth it if they just had to walk over the few steps to each other’s houses.

Dean himself didn’t usually have trouble falling asleep, so he started setting an alarm for the middle of the night because their nightly hang-outs were actually kind of fun. Not so much during the day when he’d be more tired than usual, but Dean had yet to win a round of their new game in which they tried to get the other one to fall asleep first.

Jimmy had started it all off by offering him warm milk with honey. Since Jimmy kind of assumed that Dean had sleeping problems as well (and Dean didn’t exactly correct him), he couldn’t very well decline. Next thing he knew, he woke up in the morning on Jimmy’s couch to the scent of pancakes, maple syrup, and coffee, a blanket wrapped tightly around him.

Other things they tried, which worked for Dean but apparently not Jimmy, included: listening to relaxing music, turning off all the lights and talking by candlelight, and using calming scents like lavender or content omega.

(Okay, that last one was on Dean. He should have known that for Jimmy, content alpha would probably have a more calming effect. But Dean was pretty content, so they had that scent covered anyway.)

When Jimmy came over, he usually stayed until Dean had fallen asleep, and the next day, he was gone. This irked Dean a bit for no other reason than the fact that he didn’t get to reciprocate and make breakfast for Jimmy.

So, Dean was done playing fair. The next time, he made sure he was hyped up on caffeine so that he wouldn’t be the one falling asleep first for once and prepared the couch with so many fluffy blankets that it actually looked more like a nest.

There. Try staying awake now, Jimbo!

That was the night Dean realized _why_ Jimmy had trouble sleeping.

Dean was casually leaning closer during their midnight talk so that Jimmy got a good whiff of content alpha scent, which was supposed to help omegas (and Dean assumed alphasexual alphas) fall asleep. The only light source was the soft light of a floor lamp, which had been dimmed so that it was hard to make out much. Dean also made sure he was keeping his voice level as he told Jimmy all about his day, trying to include the most boring facts.

(Leave it to Jimmy to find the story of the bug that had landed on Dean’s arm fascinating. Dean quickly changed tactics and started talking about cars, steering clear of any animal-related incidents from then on.)

Finally—finally!—Jimmy felt safe enough at his place to fall asleep. Or maybe he was just exhausted enough. Something had to give sooner or later after all, with him being up most nights.

One moment, Jimmy was mumbling something unintelligible in response to Dean’s tale of how he had to properly maintain Baby, the next the alpha had nodded off and was actually snoring ever so softly.

Only problem was, his head had rolled onto Dean’s shoulder so that Dean was kind of trapped.

There was really nothing for Dean to do but rest his own head against Jimmy’s and close his eyes for a moment. The caffeine was starting to wear off and he could bask in the knowledge that he had won this round…

⁂

Dean was startled awake by someone whimpering and thrashing about. It took him a moment to figure out what was going on.

Jimmy was clearly trapped in a nightmare. Mumbles of “No!” interrupted the whimpers, and as soon as Dean realized what was happening, he quickly caught him by the shoulder and shook him softly.

“Hey, Jim. Jim!”

The alpha didn’t wake up and just kept squirming around.

Inexperienced at bringing someone out of a nightmare, Dean let his instincts take over. He nuzzled behind Jimmy’s ear, soothing him by scenting at this intimate place. At the same time, he pulled Jimmy’s head against his own neck, letting the other alpha scent him right back.

Of course, those instincts that were guiding Dean now would usually apply to an alpha trying to soothe an omega. But luckily, it seemed to work on Jimmy as well, who calmed down almost instantly.

If Jimmy had to deal with nightmares like these regularly on his own, Dean could understand why he had problems sleeping through the night.

He was just about to let go of Jimmy when he thought he caught a whiff of something he couldn’t quite place. Something almost sweet, like another layer of scent underneath the earthy alpha one. The last time he had scented it had been when Jimmy had freaked out that night in front of his house.

This time, Jimmy had been scared as well, but right now, he had gone back to sleep, his terror over, at peace once more.

Dean kept scenting behind Jimmy’s ear vigorously to try and chase that hint of a scent, but the more he tried to chase it, the further away it seemed. All it did was make Jimmy giggle and wriggle around in his sleep.

That’s when Dean realized what he was doing—scenting the crap out of his neighbor and alpha buddy in his sleep—and he quickly stopped.

He might have just imagined it. Surely no alpha’s scent would have a component that smelled that nice.

Carefully and oh so slowly, Dean extracted himself from Jimmy and laid him down on the couch. It was his time to take care of Jimmy for once. Making sure that he was comfortable, Dean tucked him in.

He looked softer asleep, the lines of his face smoothed out, worries left behind in dreams that were no longer plagued by nightmares. Or maybe that was just the soft light making Jimmy’s face look more beautiful still. Dean felt a strange pull to duck down and scent this alpha again—which was ridiculous, of course, because alphas didn’t scent each other.

Well, he supposed Jimmy and that Balthazar guy did some scenting, but that was different. They were… something after all. Not together. Not dating even, since Dean had recently spent lots of nights with Jimmy and never once had Balthazar spent the night at Jimmy’s place. Which meant that maybe they didn’t do a lot of scenting after all. Just fucking.

What would that be like? Being with an alpha? Wouldn’t that be a constant battle, trying to get each other to submit? Or maybe one of them _liked_ submitting and let the other alpha win those fights?

Dean realized that he had no idea about these things even though he was friends with an alphasexual alpha. He might need to ask Jimmy about it. For educational purposes.


	6. Chapter 6

For once, Cas didn’t wake up with a start, jolted out of some nightmare or other, but instead rolled around onto the other side with a content sigh before stretching and blinking his eyes open lazily.

It was still early, but he hadn’t slept this well in… a really, _really_ long time. Nowadays, he never got more than a couple hours of sleep at a time, too scared of the dreams that haunted him or of being found by Mike’s pack.

He slowly became aware of the fact that he wasn’t lying in his own bed, but rather on a couch—a couch with _lots_ of soft blankets. Oh, right. He had come over to Dean’s place. The blanket he was wrapped in smelled like the alpha and Cas gave in to temptation and buried his nose in it, inhaling as much of the scent as he could. What a nice scent to wake up to.

As soon as he realized how creepy he was being, he dropped the blanket like a hot potato and sat up.

Why did Dean have to be so sweet and caring?! Alphas weren’t supposed to be like that! This was dangerous territory. His omega was actually starting to feel taken care of. More than that, he felt safe and protected in Dean’s presence. He should not have let himself fall asleep at Dean’s place.

Lately, he had caught himself staring at Dean’s biceps or ogling his bowlegs during their workout. That, he could deal with. After all, he had been attracted to Dean from the get go, nothing new there. It was just some physical attraction because, let’s face it, Dean was without a doubt the single most attractive alpha he had ever seen. Now, though, it seemed to have become about more than physical attraction and that, Cas could not risk.

It wasn’t like he had the slightest chance with him anyway. There was no way he could tell Dean that he was an omega, and Dean was only interested in omegas. There. Case closed. Cas would have to keep pretending to be an alpha, regularly applying the alpha scent, so that Dean would never even suspect—

The alpha scent! Cas froze. What time was it? He looked around for a clock and when he found one, his suspicion was confirmed: he had to apply it again! The 24 hours were almost up and he could not be here when the scent wore off.

He quickly got up, folded the blanket, laid it back onto the couch on top of the other ones, and then snuck out of the house. He would thank Dean later.

⁂

Dean still hadn’t been able to make breakfast for Jimmy. Even though he had totally won the last round, Jimmy had been gone by the time Dean had gotten up. He just hoped that Jimmy hadn’t had another nightmare while Dean had slept calmly in his own bed. Maybe he should have stayed with him…

To make up for it, Dean invited Jimmy over for dinner and after that, when they had moved to the couch, he just kept the beers coming until they were both inebriated enough to be having that discussion Dean was curious about.

“So… you and Balthazar, huh?” There. That was a great opener.

Jimmy didn’t seem to think so, as he just squinted at him, took another swig from his beer, and then asked, “Was that a question?”

Yes, it was, thank you very much. Although with Jimmy, he shouldn’t be surprised that he’d have to get more specific, so he made another attempt, “How’s that going? You scentin’ each other?”

Scenting seemed like a safe place to start. After all, he could hardly ask about knots and stuff right off the bat. Plus, Dean _had_ wondered about scenting too.

Now in addition to the narrowed eyes, Dean got the whole head-tilt thing. “Why would we be scenting each other?”

Dean’s heart made a happy little leap for no discernable reason. Maybe it was the beer making him a bit light-headed. In his attempt to get Jimmy loose-lipped, he might have had one too many too.

“So, it’s just physical then?” he made sure. “Not emotional?”

Jimmy kept staring at him intently for a moment. Then his eyes widened in realization. “You are under the impression that Balthazar and I are having intercourse.”

“You’re not?”

“No, we are just… friends.”

Dean didn’t like the pause before the ‘friends’ part.

“But… He kisses you!” he pointed out. He’d definitely seen Balthazar kiss Jimmy good-bye, that’s not what you did if you were just friends.

“Just on the cheek,” Jimmy retorted. “He’s European or something.”

“Still. It’s weird,” Dean insisted. It was probably the beer that made him say, “Here, I’ll show ya.”

With that declaration, he leaned over and pecked Jimmy right on the cheek. Jimmy instantly turned beet red, the blush spreading from his cheeks down to his neck, making him look kind of adorable. That’s why Dean did it again, just to see if Jimmy could possibly get any redder. His lips lingered against his skin for a moment longer this time.

“See? Weird,” he finally declared as he leaned back again, even though it wasn’t, really. It had felt kind of tingly, Jimmy’s soft skin against his lips. Again—that might just have been the beer, but Dean was starting to feel his own cheeks heat up.

“Well, I don’t think your tongue is supposed to make contact,” Jimmy deadpanned. Dean was about to protest that he had not used any tongue when Jimmy already went on, “It’s more of a cheek against cheek thing. You know, like this…” This time, Jimmy was the one to lean over.

His cheek softly grazed Dean’s and—whoa! Those were some cheek-grazing skills Jimmy got there. Felt kind of nice.

Dean cleared his throat. “Yeah, that’s… not weird at all.” How had this conversation gotten so off track? He was supposed to find out about how this whole dating thing worked for two alphas. “So… no alpha in your life at the moment, huh?” he asked, leaving the whole cheek incident behind because no matter what Jimmy said, it _had_ been weird. Weird in the way that he could still feel his cheek tingle where Jimmy had touched it.

Jimmy was staring at him again and Dean fidgeted uncomfortably under the scrutiny, taking the last sip of his beer as a distraction before putting the bottle down. “No. I guess not,” Jimmy finally said as he lowered his eyes.

“Yeah, well. If you ever need a wingman… Wing-alpha.” Dean snickered. He was hilarious!

Unfortunately, Jimmy didn’t seem to agree. He rolled his eyes, although Dean liked to believe it was a fond eye-roll. “You’re drunk.” He took the last sip of his beer as well, but before Dean could assure him that he was a bit tipsy at best, he added, “It’s late. You should better go to bed.”

“Aw, Jim. You want to get me into bed?” Dean asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

That got him another eye-roll, so Dean turned serious and said, “You should stay.”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“You’re just gonna have nightmares again and I hate when I can’t do anything about it.” That was probably more honesty than he’d be comfortable with when completely sober, but right now, he really couldn’t care less.

Jimmy, who had gotten up from the couch, paused for a moment, looking stunned. Oh right, Dean was probably not supposed to even know about those nightmares to begin with.

Jimmy stood there for a moment longer, but then he just said, “Goodnight, Dean.”

Dean had to watch him leave, knowing that he’d be up all night again while Dean would be unable to protect him from whatever he saw in those nightmares.


	7. Chapter 7

All of a sudden, Dean had developed an interest in same-designation relationships and it was starting to get on Cas’ nerves. How would _he_ know what it was like to be an alpha in a relationship with another alpha?

Of course, Dean had no way of knowing that Cas had no experience whatsoever with being in a same-designation relationship, so Cas tried to be vague in his answers. But Dean just kept coming up with ridiculous questions like: did cycles sync for alphas too and wasn’t that weird when both were in rut and wanted to mount the other one? Did they have breeding instincts during their ruts even knowing that it wasn’t possible for them to knock each other up?

For the most part, Cas made something up on the spot, but he really hoped that Dean wouldn’t research it further and find something that contradicted what Cas had told him. He might actually misinform Dean for all he knew, which was probably not fair to Dean, who was just curious about his friend’s sexuality, but what was Cas supposed to do?

Despite the fact that Dean’s questions were starting to get annoying, Cas had to admit that the thing he had feared would happen, had happened: he had developed a full-blown crush on the alpha.

First, he had been a bit rattled when he had realized that Dean knew about his nightmares. After all, the more Dean knew, the more his cover identity was in danger. Had he said something in his sleep? If he had mentioned names, they could both be in danger… But Dean had done everything in his power to make him feel safe and as a result, Cas did sleep better. (When they were together, that was.)

Then there were the training sessions that did nothing to diminish his crush. No wonder, during his self-defense lessons he was confronted with Dean, glistening with sweat, muscles defined, the pure musky scent of alpha all around him… Being chased by him was just the icing on the cake and awakened instincts in him he hadn’t even known he _had_.

Of course, he knew about the fight or flight instinct—he’d experienced that enough times with alphas, being rooted to the spot by fear even though he just wanted to run for his life. But he had never experienced the omega instinct to playfully try to get an alpha to chase him. Not until Dean.

With Dean, _he_ was the one to initiate most of their impromptu chases around the gym. Some part of him wanted Dean to catch him, but of course every time Dean did catch up to him, he would just tap him on the shoulder and give him a grin and a head start for the next round.

He had just ‘caught’ him for the third time in a row and raised his eyebrows in a challenging yet endearing way that Cas couldn’t help himself. Dean was so close, and Cas could be discreet, it wasn’t like Dean would _know_. It was just a deep inhale. Not really scenting, just… breathing deeply next to him. Yes. That’s what it was.

⁂

Was Jimmy trying to _scent_ him?! Dean stopped short, keeping perfectly still, letting the victorious grin slowly slip from his face.

He should probably say something. Make some kind of joke. Instead, he just stood there, his eyes dipping down to Jimmy’s neck of their own accord.

It almost seemed like Jimmy was about to bare his neck when—

Someone cleared their throat.

Dean immediately took a step back while looking up to see Benny who had chosen this… weird moment between them to sneak up on them.

“Just came to see how it’s going,” Benny said, looking from Dean to Jimmy and back.

For some reason, Jimmy looked even more flushed than before even though they had stopped running around and he had long since caught his breath.

“Making progress,” Dean informed Benny, and then, to show him that there was no weird almost-scenting going on in his gym, no sir, he added, “Wanna join?”

That’s how Benny wound up playing the part of the alpha predator while Dean observed what Jimmy’s weak points were and gave instructions.

It was going well—Jimmy _had_ made progress, Dean was proud to note and could hold his own against Benny’s attacks quite well. But when Benny tried to pin his arms to his side from behind, that’s when it happened.

Dean had realized early on that going for Jimmy’s back even in a pretend way made the alpha highly uncomfortable, most likely due to his injuries. He had never reacted like this though. He twisted around, instantly cowering down in front of Benny, his neck bared as he made himself as submissive as possible, whimpering for mercy.

Dean’s brain momentarily shut off as instincts kicked in. In two strides, he was by their side, placing himself between them, teeth bared to take on the alpha who was threatening Jimmy, about to get into an alpha fight for him if it came to that.

Luckily, Benny didn’t look for a fight, but retreated a few steps, his hands held outward in a sign of surrender, which calmed Dean’s alpha down almost right away. The threat taken care of, Dean turned around to Jimmy, who was still making himself as small as possible in an attempt to show the attacker that he was submitting to him.

Dean crouched down beside Jimmy, careful to keep his distance in order not to scare him further. “Hey, you’re okay,” he said, trying to go for a soothing tone of voice. “It’s just Benny and me. See?” He motioned towards Benny, who was standing a few feet away, apparently unsure of what to say or do.

Benny was one of the gentlest alphas Dean knew and he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was pretty sure Jimmy knew that as well, but something had to have spooked him.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” Benny finally said, rubbing the back of his neck.

It took a few more seconds, but then Jimmy looked up, still hesitantly. He looked at Dean first, who tried to smile at him encouragingly, then at Benny before he slowly got to his feet.

“Yes… I… sorry. You startled me,” Jimmy took the excuse Benny had offered him.

Understatement of the year. Jimmy hadn’t been _startled_ —he’d been _terrified_!

“I think that’s enough practice for today,” Dean said, trying to move past the awkwardness of the situation.

The most confusing part of it all: those were some powerful protective instincts Jimmy kept bringing out in him. He had almost challenged _Benny_ of all people.

While Benny and Jimmy were apologizing to each other (“No, it was _my_ fault.” – “But I should have warned you what I was trying to do…”), Dean couldn’t help but wonder about Jimmy’s submissive posture. Maybe that’s what had triggered his protective reaction. It wasn’t really a posture typical for alphas. It was the kind of posture that would make any red-blooded alpha want to protect and soothe and… embrace the person showing these submissive signs. 

Yes, that had to be the reason why he still had this insane urge to scent-mark Jimmy and give him a cuddle.


	8. Chapter 8

Cas was pacing up and down in his bedroom, still agitated because of what had happened at the gym. It was always difficult for him to calm down after an incident like that.

Just like that, from one second to the next, he had been back there, had felt teeth plunge into his shoulder blade, had smelled an awful alpha scent, could almost taste it… But then, before the gagging could start, there had been another alpha’s scent. One that offered comfort and safety. One he didn’t want to run away from but get closer to.

Dean.

At first, Cas hadn’t really understood the words Dean had said, but the tone of his voice in combination with his scent had been enough for him to return to reality much faster than usual.

Cas sighed and sat down on his bed. He had made a complete fool of himself in front of both Dean and Benny. Some ‘alpha’ he was, being scared out of his mind because of a role play scenario.

Although, he had embarrassed himself in front of them even before that little stunt. Now that he had some distance to Dean’s alluring scent, he couldn’t believe that he had almost invited the alpha to _scent_ him before Benny had interrupted them. What had he been _thinking_?!

Nothing, apparently. It had been a stupid omega instinct. Dean probably wouldn’t have been able to scent anything over the fake alpha scent even if he hadn’t declined the offer (which he would have), but Cas shouldn’t tempt fate like that in the first place.

Seriously—what kind of an omega bared his neck for an alpha to scent? An omega who was trying to initiate physical intimacy with the alpha, inviting him to step closer and—

The buzzing of his cell phone brought him out of his thoughts. Unsurprisingly, the message was from Dean, who was probably still freaked out because of that stunt earlier.

_got a nest. wanna hang out?_

Cas had to smile despite himself. They had started joking around because Dean had used so many blankets one night that it had looked like a nest. Ever since then it had become kind of an in-joke between them. Or maybe it was some sort of alpha-competition: who could make the best nest. Dean was a very competitive alpha and Cas wouldn’t put it past him that he just wanted to win.

While Cas was thinking about Dean’s comfortable couch buried under a heap of blankets and pillows, another text came in.

_it’s real cozy._

A second later, a picture came through.

Damn, it did look enticing. The couch had been pulled out so that there was more room, and joke or not, it looked like an awesome nest, offering just the kind of safety Cas’ omega was yearning for.

Biting his lips, Cas looked down at his phone, his fingers unsure of what to text back. He shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t. But he knew he’d be in for a rough night after what had happened at the gym, and if nothing else, Dean kept the nightmares away…

He quickly sent a thumbs-up back and then added a laughing smiley so that Dean would know that _he_ knew that the nest thing was a joke.

⁂

Ever since Dean had dropped Jimmy off, he’d been restless. Jimmy had clearly still been shaken, even if he had tried to hide it, and Dean couldn’t help but feel responsible.

He finally fought the restlessness by getting all the blankets he could find and arranging them on his couch in a way he knew Jimmy would find difficult to stay awake on.

When Jimmy accepted the offer to come over, he sighed in relief.

They watched an episode of _Doctor Sexy_ mainly in silence, which gave Dean time to think of something to say that would show Jimmy that he was there for him. By the end of the episode, Dean had had enough time to come up with, “You can tell me stuff, you know.”

He was rather proud of himself for that since he was usually all for the not-talking-about-it approach.

Jimmy’s eyes found his and bore into him in the way that was typical for him. Since he didn’t say anything and his expression gave nothing away, Dean added, “I mean, I get how that would give you nightmares.”

He motioned towards Jimmy’s back to make sure he understood what Dean was talking about.

Jimmy finally severed eye contact and looked down at the corner of the blanket he was fiddling with in his lap. “I don’t think I should tell you about that ‘stuff,’” he mumbled.

“Hey, I get it,” Dean said. “You’re embarrassed. An _alpha_ getting marked like that… That’s unusual.”

Before he could go on to tell Jimmy that there was no reason for him to be embarrassed when it was just the two of them, Jimmy said, “Yes, _that_ is the reason I do not wish to talk about it.”

If he phrased it like that, it was obviously _not_ the reason. But Dean didn’t want to push.

“Yeah, okay,” he said with a shrug. “Just… If you ever do want to talk…”

“I don’t,” Jimmy interrupted him, a bit more harshly than necessary. “I don’t want to _talk_.” Then he sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. When he spoke up again, his voice was small and exhausted, “I just want to not feel scared. Can I just… not be scared for once?”

“Yeah, man. Of course,” Dean said, even though that didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t like Jimmy was asking for permission or anything. But maybe it was _Dean_ who could ask for permission, so he added, “I know that you’re a strong alpha and all. But can I just…”

“Yes, please,” Jimmy interrupted him once more, and the next moment, Jimmy had snuggled up against him and Dean had instinctively enclosed him in his arms.

Dean had never cuddled with an alpha before. Not with one he wasn’t related to in any case, and even then not since he was a pup. Well, it wasn’t like he and Jimmy were cuddling right now either. It was more of a holding each other thing. But it still felt less weird than he would have imagined holding an alpha would feel.

Maybe it was because it was Jimmy. They were friends. Of course, holding him and comforting him didn’t feel weird. But some part of him knew that if this were Benny, it would most definitely be weird.

“You can feel safe here. You know that, right?” he asked.

He liked to think that Jimmy burrowing into him further was his way of saying yes. Deep down, he knew better, though, which broke his heart just a little bit.


	9. Chapter 9

As always when one of his friends was in need of help, Dean did everything he could to make things better. Luckily, the solution turned out to be pretty simple: there were lots of lotions on the market that were specifically designed to take care of scars just like Jimmy’s. It wasn’t even just for abused omegas, but mostly for when biting play between mates got a bit out of hand.

Dean found one for alphas (even though Dean didn’t understand what the difference to omega lotions was supposed to be) with the best ratings, approved by doctors, and got it from the drug store.

After their next workout at the gym, he tossed it to Jimmy in the changing room.

“Here. Thought that might help,” he said.

Jimmy didn’t look too happy, though. No gleeful smile or bashful ‘Thanks’ and certainly no grateful hug (which Dean wouldn’t have said no to).

“Uhm…” Dean continued. “It’s supposed to do wonders for your… you know.”

Jimmy looked up from the lotion at Dean, a dangerous glint in his eyes. Definitely no ‘thank you’ hug for Dean.

“Would you even care?” Jimmy asked, tone harsh. “If I weren’t an _alpha_?”

“What is that supposed to mean? _Of course_ I’d care!” Dean had no idea where this was coming from.

“That’s why you’re so freaked out about the scars because as an alpha, I’m not supposed to have them. And that makes you uncomfortable. So that’s what this is for?” Jimmy held up the lotion for emphasis. “So that you don’t have to see the ugly scars anymore?”

“Okay, that doesn’t even make any _sense_. You don’t let me see them anyway, you keep them covered at all times!”

This conversation had gotten away from him somewhere along the way. Trying to get it back on track, he said, “Look, I was just trying to help. _You_ were the one who seemed embarrassed, and it looked like the scars might be uncomfortable for you, so… I thought this could help, that’s all. But feel free to throw it away.”

Dean was rummaging around in his gym bag, more as a distraction than anything. Some part of him was a bit hurt that his attempt to do something nice for Jimmy had been so badly received.

Jimmy’s anger seemed to have vanished as quickly as it had come and he said, his voice much softer now, “Well, I appreciate your concern. But this is useless.”

“It’s not!” Dean protested. He had done his research after all. “It’s got great reviews…”

“It’s useless because I can’t really apply it,” Jimmy interrupted him, illustrating the issue by trying and failing to reach his own back.

“Oh.” Dean should have thought of that. The people who had left the glowing review might have had scars in different places or they had a mate to apply the ointment. “I could help”, he suggested.

Jimmy’s ears turned slightly pink, but he said, “Thank you, that is a nice offer.”

“Okay.” Seemed like they were doing this. “So, wanna take off your…” He motioned towards Jimmy’s shirt.

“What—right now?!”

“Yeah, why not?”

Dean walked over and took the lotion from him, reading the instructions on the back so that he’d do it right. He tried to keep his eyes from wandering to Jimmy, who was hesitantly pulling off his shirt.

⁂

Cas couldn’t think of a good reason to decline the offer since he couldn’t just tell Dean that his omega might misunderstand that simple gesture of friendship because he was attracted to Dean.

So, he had no choice but to get half naked in front of his crush (bad idea!) and sit down on the bench next to Dean, turning his back to the alpha, basically inviting him to ogle the ugly scars.

“Okay, I’m gonna…” Dean said after a few seconds in which Cas barely dared to breathe.

Then he started touching Cas oh so gently, spreading the lotion slowly over his back. Cas couldn’t remember ever having been touched like this—with so much care. It felt… really nice, even more so because this was _Dean_.

Dean was touching and stroking his naked skin, softly and carefully brushing his hands up and down his back. Cas hadn’t known that his back could feel anything but pain. Instead of hurting, it was tingling where Dean touched him, a warm, nice tingling that spread throughout his body.

Of course, with intimate touches like these, Cas’ omega who hadn’t been touched like this in way too long started to get the wrong idea.

Oh no! He could _not_ start slicking right now. Dean would be able to smell it even over the alpha scent for sure.

“You need to stop!” Cas snapped, quickly got up, snatched his shirt and fled.

⁂

Dean had gotten lost in the feeling of taking care of Jimmy. Massaging the lotion into his skin had felt so great that his hands had kind of started tracing patterns on Jimmy’s back without his conscious intent, simply because scars or not, Jimmy’s skin had felt nice below his fingers.

Jimmy’s blissful sighs had made it impossible for him to stop. At least until Jimmy had told him to. Before Dean could really register what was going on, Jimmy had left in a hurry, mumbling something about rut.

By the time Dean got his bearings, Jimmy was nowhere to be found.

At home, Dean finally got a reply to his six messages, telling Dean that they wouldn’t see each other for a few days. Jimmy had, in fact, gone into rut.

Some part of Dean wondered if he might have been the one to send Jimmy into rut. It was a bit coincidental that it had happened right when they had done some stuff that could be seen as intimate. If Jimmy was attracted to him, it might have sent his alpha into rut.

Somehow, that possibility didn’t freak Dean out at all. It was more of a compliment, really.

He thought back to the fake knot Jimmy had bought. Would he use it during his rut?

Since Dean was still pent up after the workout (every alpha would be after chasing someone, didn’t matter that the someone had been an alpha too), he decided that a jerk-off session was what his alpha needed to calm down.

He got the lube, a few tissues and his laptop and settled in on his bed, ready to enjoy some omega on omega action.

As one of his go-to videos started playing, he took himself in hand and wondered what would have happened if he’d caught Jimmy during their workout. _Really_ caught him. They would have tumble to the floor, Dean on top of him, both of them breathing heavily.

Jimmy, with a strong alpha like Dean on top of him, would have had no choice but to bare his neck in submission, inviting Dean to assert his dominance.

Dean’s dick jumped in his hand. Wait—he was supposed to watch two omegas get in on here.

He focused on what was going on on screen, but maybe he had watched this one too often. The omegas licking each other’s slick wasn’t really doing it for him right now.

He closed the window and took a look at some of the other suggested videos. Out of curiosity, he clicked on one entitled, ‘Alpha makes submissive alpha his bitch.’

At first, it didn’t do anything for him either. He was still horny as fuck, though, and at this point, he’d probably fuck an alpha if no one else was around, just to get his dick wet.

Maybe Jimmy would even let him. He was using fake knots as jerk off toys and had undoubtedly let alphas fuck him before.

If Dean squinted, he could almost pretend the alpha on screen who was currently getting pounded into the floor was Jimmy.

Dean started stroking himself when the alpha on top bit at the other alpha’s neck, making sure he knew who was the _alpha’s_ alpha here. The submissive alpha whimpered, really close to a sound an omega might make as he got drilled good.

Maybe Jimmy was watching some alpha porn right now while he was pushing that fake knot into his channel, pretending it was a real alpha feeding him his cock. An alpha like Dean who could totally help out an alpha buddy by fucking him through his rut.

Dean closed his eyes, fucking his fist, but in his mind, it was an alpha’s hole—no, wait, an omega’s hole—ah, to hell with it, an _alpha’s_ hole. A _particular_ alpha’s hole. Jimmy was the one underneath him, writhing around, begging to take him harder, to give him his knot.

And Dean did, fucking into his hand one, two more times and then he gripped his knot tightly like Jimmy’s channel would, and milked his cock for all it was worth.

After it had shot off what felt like much more spunk than usual, Dean tried to catch his breath as he haphazardly wiped the ejaculate away with the tissues.

He closed his laptop so that he didn’t have to see the alpha with the insane stamina _still_ fuck the other alpha in every imaginable position, and then tried to make sense of what had just happened. 

He usually jerked off to the images of pretty little omegas and the thought of slick coating his cock. But this—well, it seemed like he was kind of attracted to Jimmy. Who was an _alpha_. Huh.

Oh well. He could freak out about that tomorrow. Right now, endorphins made it rather difficult for him to care…


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: short scene with Dean/OMC

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, he was regularly getting naked (for the community shower) with an alpha who was—let’s face it—a great provider who was sweet and funny, yet strong and manly, who was a good listener and took good care of him. Basically, Dean was the whole package.

 _Of course_ , all of that had to get his omega’s attention. So, when on top of everything else, Dean was touching him so intimately, it should not have come as a surprise when his body reacted by going into heat. And yet, it had.

He had been on those heat-inducing drugs long enough that the doctor had said it could take _years_ for him to go into heat again without them.

Cas hadn’t had a natural heat since before those drugs had been forced on him for the first time. He should be happy. He had thought the drugs had messed his body up so bad that he’d have lasting effects.

But he hadn’t had to go through a heat without an alpha in so long that he had forgotten that that wasn’t a picnic either. All his omega wanted was to have Dean’s hands back on his body, rubbing lotion all over him. Maybe not just over his back. Maybe his hands would dip lower, reach around and… do other stuff.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking about his neighbor like that. But the heat was about to really hit him and if his omega wanted to distract himself by thinking about Dean, then who was Cas to deny him? His omega hadn’t craved anything sexual from an alpha in so long, he had forgotten all about the tingly feeling low in his belly that was actually rather nice and that only came when Cas thought about green eyes and tender alpha hands massaging his back.

He’d do everything to get through this heat without any outside help. Even if it meant thinking about Dean’s huge alpha cock (yes, he might have peeked after their training sessions, but it was hard to miss, hanging between Dean’s legs, all ready to show Cas’ omega what’s what).

Before the week was over, Cas would come on his fake knot numerous times, Dean’s name on his lips. At least Dean was safe to fantasize about since nothing could ever happen between them. After all, Dean was as omegasexual as they came.

⁂

Over the next few days, Dean jerked off more than when he was in rut (well, not quite, but it came close). There was one fantasy that got him going effortlessly. He’d walk over to Jimmy’s and the other alpha would open the door, all disheveled from ‘taking care of his rut,’ and then he’d pull Dean inside and present for him. (Never mind that alphas didn’t present, but it was a fantasy, so he wasn’t looking for realism here.)

Dean had kind of postponed the whole thinking about what it meant that he had sex fantasies about an alpha thing. It just seemed way too exhausting since it meant he’d have to try and figure out _feelings_ and he was really a whole lot better at _ignoring_ feelings until they went away or it all blew up in his face.

He did, however, bring it up with Benny and Sam when they were hanging out at their usual joint, sitting at the bar and nursing their beers.

“Hey. Either of you ever been attracted to someone but not to their scent?” he asked when they were all two beers in.

“No way,” Benny said. “How would that even work?”

“How does it work for betas?” Dean countered.

“Even betas can be attracted to someone’s scent, they’re just not as aware of the fact that _that’s_ what they’re attracted to,” Sam threw in.

“But you can be attracted to someone who’s wearing blockers, right?” Dean insisted.

Sam frowned at him. “Why? Who are you attracted to?”

Snickering, Benny elbowed Sam in the side. “Aside from Jimmy, you mean?”

Dean rolled his eyes. He had forgotten that Benny on his second beer could be rather annoying.

“Shut up,” he mumbled because he had only just realized himself that there was the slight possibility that he wasn’t un-attracted to Jimmy. His friends had no business making fun of him for that.

“What?” Benny asked, defensive. “If I hadn’t walked in on you the other day, you would have mounted him right there in the gym.”

The omega bartender, who had chosen this moment to stop by, looked Dean up and down with an interested glint in his eyes.

“Sorry about that,” Sam said to the omega and then, when he had moved on to someone flagging him, turned back to Dean and Benny. “Okay, can we maybe cut back on the alpha talk a bit?” he asked, looking up and down the bar to see if anyone else had been listening to them.

“Yeah, agreed,” Dean said, jumping at the chance to get out of this conversation he had started.

It looked like the others weren’t able to help him here.

It wasn’t like he suddenly didn’t like omegas anymore. He liked them just fine. That bartender wasn’t bad looking and Dean was definitely attracted to him—and he was one hundred percent omega. Maybe it had just been too long since he had gotten laid.

The next time the omega bartender came by and gave him a flirty smile, Dean smiled back. Yeah, he was totally into omegas.

⁂

He already regretted bringing the bartender home when they stumbled into his bedroom late at night. But they were already ripping each other’s clothes off, so it seemed like this one-night stand was happening.

Brandon… Bryan? _The omega_ smelled nice enough. Not irresistible or ‘have to have him now,’ but like… omega and slick, which was familiar and… not confusing and it made Dean hard enough so that he should be able to go through with this.

This was just about finding relief together anyway. And maybe a little bit about proving to himself that his alpha was into omegas, which shouldn’t be anything he had to prove in the first place because _of course_ he was into omegas.

“Dan!” the omega moaned when Dean pressed him up against the window.

Dean didn’t feel like correcting him and just shushed him instead because the moan was actually not as sexy as omega sex noises were supposed to be and maybe they just shouldn’t be talking.

Unfortunately, he’d had a few beers, which meant that it took a while for him to get it up enough so that he could put on the damn condom.

It was a relief when he could finally fuck the omega up against the window, trying to ignore the moans. Now all he had to do was get him off, get himself off and then he could send him packing and go to bed.

That mission seemed easy enough, but keeping his erection did pose some challenges after a night out drinking. The fact that he was more excited about going to bed than about what was happening here might have been a red flag, but he chose to ignore it in favor of the familiarity of an omega’s channel squeezing his dick rhythmically.

Still, he wasn’t really into it, which meant it would probably take a while to finish this.

Suddenly, Dean saw the lights come on in Jimmy’s living room and a second later, Jimmy came in and stopped dead in his tracks.

Their eyes met and Dean’s dick, which had lost some of its hardness, came back alive. He should probably feel embarrassed to be caught with his dick far up some omega’s ass, but the few beers helped him not to care too much about being watched in the middle of sex. As a matter of fact, the few beers suddenly didn’t seem a problem anymore performance-wise.

Dean, who had stopped moving halfway out of the omega’s hole, held eye contact as he pushed back in again and then started fucking the omega for real, which was a lot easier now that his dick was hard enough to pound him good.

He had expected Jimmy to turn around and leave, but the other alpha was still standing there, eyes glued to Dean, and then—he fumbled with his pajama pants and started touching himself, never breaking eye contact.

Dean had to bite his own lip to keep himself from moaning Jimmy’s name. Unfortunately, Dean couldn’t see everything because the window wasn’t big enough to give him an unobstructed view, but just _knowing_ that Jimmy was getting himself off to watching Dean fuck was enough to make him fuck that hole faster and harder.

They had some sort of intense staring thing going on and Dean certainly wouldn’t be the first one to look away.

There was some background noise—Ryan kept urging him on, but Dean was ignoring him, completely focused on Jimmy and the face he made when he came. Seconds later, Dean exploded into the condom with the inexplicable urge to bite down on Jimmy’s neck, even though the other alpha was one house over and an omega was right there in front of him.

As he tried to catch his breath, he saw Jimmy wave at him a bit awkwardly, a satisfied blush on his face as if _he_ had been the one who had just gotten his ass reamed, and then he left the living room, lights turning off again.

“Uhm…” Aaron said, and that’s when Dean realized that there was one person involved in this strange threesome who hadn’t come yet.

Dean _always_ made sure the omega he was with had a good time too, so this was a first for him.

He quickly used his fingers to bring him to orgasm and then was relieved when the omega finally left with a “See you around, Dan.” (The ultimate code for ‘Let’s never do this again.’)

Even though it was late, Dean had some trouble falling asleep.

Had this really just happened? Jimmy had a good excuse—he was in rut. For an alpha in rut, an omega getting dicked would be almost irresistible to look away from. Although Jimmy hadn’t spared the omega a second glance but had stared at _him_. Which, okay, he was into alphas, so maybe not that big of a surprise either.

More of a surprise: The fact that Jimmy watching him had done way more for Dean than pushing his dick into an omega’s tight, wet heat and smelling that slick.

God, Dean wished Jimmy’s rut would be over soon and things could go back to normal. The fact that Jimmy was in rut was starting to mess with his head.

Ever since he had started his rut, they hadn’t been able to hang out at night. But there was really nothing Dean could do about it. They’d have to wait for Jimmy to finish his rut before they could snuggle… uhm, _hang out_ in a manly-buddy way in his ‘nest’ again.


	11. Chapter 11

Cas’ heat was over the next day, which was inconvenient because it meant he’d have to face Dean sooner or later since he could only pretend to be in rut for so much longer.

He had no idea what had come over him last night. Well… that was not entirely true.

When he had seen Dean drive away and assumed that he was going out with the guys, his omega had felt somewhat abandoned, which was completely ridiculous. Dean wasn’t his alpha and there was no way he could help Cas through his heat even _if_ he weren’t opposed to helping ‘Jimmy’ through his ‘rut.’

Even Dean would catch on that something wasn’t right when he saw (or _felt_ ) Cas’ asshole slick. Plus, the alpha scent wasn’t really strong enough to block out the heat scent.

But all rational thought aside, Cas’ omega had still wanted Dean to come over and take care of him instead of going out and leaving him to pine for the alpha all alone.

Missing Dean something fierce, Cas had waited for his car to come back, and when he had finally heard it in the middle of the night, he had just wanted to see Dean, maybe wave at him goodnight to make some of the ridiculous pining his omega was doing go away.

Only, Dean hadn’t been alone—and had been in a rather compromising position.

Here was the thing: Cas had been in heat for a few days, so he’d thought about Dean _a lot_ these last few days, imagined how his stomach muscles would clench and ripple when he fucked, how powerful he’d look while holding him in place and pulling him back onto his cock, how blissful his expression would turn when his knot caught… he had imagined it all.

But all that was nothing compared to seeing the alpha in action.

Cas had wanted to be in that omega’s shoes so badly, clinging to Dean as he pushed inside over and over…

When their eyes had met, the tingling their eye contact usually provoked had gone to his belly and then lower, triggering another bout of heat. He’d thought that he’d had the worst of it behind him, but watching Dean watching him while he was in the throes of passion was too much.

Cas had kept staring at Dean while they had both chased their orgasms, not letting him break eye contact for even a second. It had worked too—Dean had basically ignored that skank of an omega he’d been with in favor of watching Cas.

They had come together, alleviating Cas’ heat like only an alpha’s knot usually could.

At the time, it had felt amazing, and Cas had felt powerful for making Dean watch _him_ while the alpha had reached climax.

Now, out of heat and with a clearer mind, Cas couldn’t believe what he’d done. Of course, that’s when he got a text from Dean asking if he was still in rut. Cas debated lying to delay the inevitable awkward encounter, but he had enough things he was lying to Dean about. No need to add more lies to it than absolutely necessary.

A few seconds after he’d texted back, the doorbell rang. Dean had to have been on his way already to be there that quickly.

Cas sniffed himself, but the alpha scent he had kept applying was doing its job again and he couldn’t smell his own scent at all. It should be safe for him to face Dean and get this talk out of the way.

⁂

It wasn’t like Dean was keen to talk about what had happened the night before when he’d been shitfaced. But he really wanted to know how much damage control he’d have to do to make up for how badly he’d screwed up. Talk about toeing the line of friendship.

Jimmy didn’t know that he was doing the dumbest shit when drunk, so he should explain why he hadn’t immediately closed the drapes.

“Listen, I was really drunk last night—” Dean started when Jimmy opened the door, then paused to scent the air. “Did you have an omega in there?” he asked, trying to look past Jimmy, who quickly stepped outside and left the door only slightly ajar.

Seemed like they were having this conversation on the front porch then.

“No,” Jimmy replied, but obviously, he was full of shit.

That had clearly been the scent of an omega! He hadn’t seen anyone come in or out of the house, but it wasn’t like he had kept tabs on it. Maybe someone had come by while he had been out last night. Maybe he had still been there, in Jimmy’s bedroom, when Jimmy and Dean had had their… weird thing. Somehow, that thought didn’t sit all too well with Dean.

Did alphasexual alphas still want or need omegas while in rut? If biology told them to breed omegas, maybe they had to give in to instincts even if they weren’t attracted to their secondary gender. Was that a thing?

“You were saying?” Jimmy asked and Dean realized that he had kind of been staring at him, which—last time they had looked at each other like that… well, it hadn’t ended well. (Or… it had ended _too_ well.)

“Yes. Right. So, I thought, y’know, let’s just move past the embarrassing moment because neither of us could really be held responsible and—” He interrupted himself and then said, “There _had_ to have been an omega in your house—my nose is still picking something up!”

Something that smelled fan-friggen- _tastic_ and that clearly came from inside the house.

Where had Jimmy found such an awesome-smelling omega? If the omega bartender from last night had smelled like this, they wouldn’t even be in this awkward situation right now because Dean would have been too busy scenting the _crap_ out of him to look out the window.

“Your nose is wrong. There is no omega,” Jimmy denied. “Now, I accept the no blame proposal and would like to go back inside to rest. This… rut has been quite hard on me.”

A moment later, Jimmy had vanished inside and the door shut in his face.

Dean tried scenting the air some more, but now that the door was closed, the scent was gone too. The memory of the smell alone was enough to drive him crazy, though, and the alpha in him was telling him to go find that omega.

Maybe Jimmy had used an omega service and was too embarrassed to admit it? He should ask him about the omega again when he wasn’t sleep deprived and just coming off his rut.

⁂

Cas had looked forward to their midnight get-togethers. After last night, he hadn’t been sure if Dean would feel comfortable inviting him again, which was why he was even more excited when he did and he found himself on Dean’s comfortable couch once more.

It seemed he hadn’t completely ruined their friendship because of heat hormones.

Of course, having only come out of heat, his omega was still craving contact and wanted to be taken care of, so he might have been a bit more cuddly than usual and he might have tried to get Dean to put his arm around him (with success. Once he had leaned into Dean, there hadn’t been anywhere else for him to put his arm). That was surely not weird for alpha friends to be doing—right?

Cas heaved a content sigh. This. This was what had been missing during his heat. Dean’s smell and arms around him, making the butterflies in his stomach do somersaults.

⁂

The smell of the mystery omega in Jimmy’s house had been in his mind (and nose) all day. He had never believed in love at first scent, but his alpha had certainly taken notice.

All of that suddenly didn’t seem important anymore when he had Jimmy back in his nest, though.

Awesome-smelling omegas might make his alpha drool, but this—watching TV while he could occasionally bump Jimmy’s shoulder with his own or give him a nudge with the arm that had somehow found its way around the other alpha—this was so much more important than chasing the scent of an omega that may or may not have been at Jimmy’s place the night before.

In a way, touching Jimmy like this, while in this nest, was so much more intimate than what he had done with that omega the night before. It certainly felt a lot better.

“You know what?” Dean suddenly remembered. “We never really got to finish with your back. We should check if the lotion did any good and reapply.”


	12. Chapter 12

This time, there was really nothing that could happen. Cas was fresh out of heat, having slicked like crazy these last few days, so as long as he concentrated on unsexy thoughts, Dean touching him shouldn’t pose any problems.

That and the fact that he was once again out of excuses for why he would decline such a nice offer made him say yes when Dean suggested reapplying the lotion. (Well, and if he was being completely honest with himself, the prospect of having Dean’s hands all over him again might have played a role in the decision making too.)

This time was different. Not that last time hadn’t been intimate—the fact that Dean’s touches had sent him into heat was proof of that—but this time, they were at Dean’s and Cas could get comfortable on the bed (which offered more space than the couch).

Cas was lying on his stomach, shirtless, and Dean was straddling his hips so that he had easier access to work that lotion into Cas’ back.

Had he not masturbated almost nonstop since his heat had started, Cas would probably have been in serious trouble right now. As it was, he could enjoy the intimacy of the moment without getting aroused. It felt so nice, being touched there when Cas would have assumed no one would want to see those scars, much less touch them.

Dean was an alpha, yet here he was, trying to undo the damage other alphas had done. As Dean’s warm hands gently massaged the lotion into his scars, Cas felt a tear well up and spill across his cheek into the pillow beneath. Another one followed suit.

“Hey, you okay?” Dean asked, pausing in his ministrations for a moment.

Of course he would notice. He was just that nice of an alpha.

Cas just nodded into the pillow because it wasn’t like he was sad exactly—he was just… He had no idea what was going on with him. He could always blame the hormones.

Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to do this shortly after his heat after all.

“Does it hurt?” Dean asked, now taking his hands off Cas’ back completely.

That wasn’t what Cas wanted at all, so he shook his head. “No. It feels good.”

“Oo-kay,” Dean said, clearly unconvinced. “Well, we’re almost finished anyway,” he added.

Then his hands returned for a short moment of bliss before Dean patted Cas’ shoulder.

“All done. You should probably stay there for a while, let it absorb.”

Dean lay down next to him to keep him company. His hands were still glistening with lotion and the grin on his face should have warned Cas for what was to come, but Dean booped his nose, leaving a smear of lotion there.

“You’re incorrigible,” Cas told him, which Dean seemed to take as a compliment. After a beat of silence, Cas added, “Thank you,” trying to convey with his voice and look how much this had meant to him.

Dean shrugged. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Any time you need some help, you just tell me, okay?”

“Mhm,” Cas hummed, not quite an agreement (because he couldn’t really promise that), but he was suddenly too tired to form complete sentences.

He would do what Dean had told him and wait here until he could put on his shirt again, just resting his eyes for a few seconds while he was waiting for the lotion to be absorbed…

⁂

Dean couldn’t believe his luck. When he woke up (on the couch because Jimmy had fallen asleep in his bed), the other alpha was still there, still fast asleep, looking as if he belonged there—in Dean’s bed.

Jimmy sighed in his sleep and turned onto his other side, and so Dean quietly closed the door again and went to prepare breakfast.

Finally.

His alpha had craved to do that ever since Jimmy had made _him_ breakfast. Finally, he could show off his own breakfast-making skills.

The scent of freshly-made waffles and hot maple syrup did the trick and lured Jimmy out of the bedroom just as Dean was finishing setting the table.

Jimmy stopped short when his eyes landed on the assortment of breakfast foods on the table.

“Morning sunshine!” Dean grinned and motioned for him to sit down. “Coffee?”

Jimmy nodded gratefully and sat down.

“I seem to have fallen asleep last night,” he said. “I’m sorry for occupying your bed. You should have woken me.”

“Nah,” Dean waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. You needed it.”

He was really hungry himself, so he dug in, happy to have this moment of contentment to spend with his alpha friend—whose scent seemed somehow… less strong than usual.

That was strange, the only change in scents was supposed to be during an alpha’s rut, and that’s when the smell would be _stronger_ , not weaker. And Jimmy’s rut was over.

Maybe Dean could get away with a quick scenting—it could be like a good morning ritual between friends.

Trying to awaken Jimmy’s alpha instincts, he tilted his head a bit, not _really_ baring it, but seeing if he could elicit a reaction. Alphas usually reacted to omegas baring their necks. Of course, Dean wasn’t an omega, but it would stand to reason that Jimmy, who was into alphas, would react to an alpha baring his neck in a similar way.

Jimmy stopped chewing and looked at him, transfixed, which made Dean think he might just get what he’d been asking for. But then Jimmy took the last sip of his coffee, thanked him for the delicious breakfast and said goodbye.

Good thing, probably. Alphas—at least omegasexual ones like himself—didn’t go around baring their necks. If they wanted to get a scenting session started, they reached out and touched the omega’s cheek, trying to direct him and seeing if they could get him to tilt his head, effectively baring _his_ neck.

Not that he had wanted to initiate a scenting or anything. He was just trying to figure out what was up with the fact that Jimmy’s scent had been less strong than usual, that was all.

⁂

Stupid alpha scent!

Cas would have loved nothing more than to take Dean up on the implicit offer to scent him—but then Dean would have scented back and it was about time to apply the alpha scent again. It wasn’t like his real scent should be scentable again, but the alpha scent should be reapplied regularly just in case. It would no doubt arouse suspicion if his scent lost some of its earthy alphaness.

That’s why he made sure that from then on, he applied an extra dosage of the scent before their training sessions (for fear that he’d get aroused around Dean) and took the alpha scent with him every time he went over to Dean’s, just in case he ended up spending more time there than planned and had to reapply it.

None of that protected him against falling deeper in love with Dean each day.

The way Dean would insist on helping him with his scars, the way he would provide a safe environment for Cas to fall asleep nightmare-free, the way he would slap his shoulder to congratulate him on some move during their self-defense lessons… all of that made him just want to tell Dean who he really was.

The fact that he couldn’t was frustrating, but at least, he was getting better at defending himself against alpha attacks. Of course, Dean was going easy on him, so there was no way he’d be up to defend himself against alphas who were fighting dirty, but he was still proud of himself for dodging Dean’s attacks more easily and getting better at evading him.

His omega thought that was a great opportunity to get a bit playful, taunting the alpha for not catching him and challenging him with a cocky attitude.

Even though Cas knew he couldn’t act on his attraction to Dean, and Dean wasn’t even attracted to him in the first place because he thought he was an alpha, their alpha and omega had a lot of fun playing with each other, mostly in a teasing way, but also goading each other from time to time, seeing how far they could go.

When Cas had finally managed to take Dean to the ground in one of their play fights, Dean seemed genuinely impressed, which in turn made Cas feel proud and on top of the world.

He helped Dean up, who was smiling brightly and then squeezed his arm softly in an invitation to put it around him because he was going for a hug. Or a side hug at least, putting his own arm around Cas’ shoulder to draw him towards him so that he could kiss him right on the cheek, keeping them connected like that for a long moment before he let go again.

“Nice move,” he then said as if that was his usual way of congratulating Cas on a job well done, completely ignoring the butterflies that were frantically flapping their wings inside Cas’ belly.

Even though Cas knew that Dean was just goofing around, probably thinking nothing of a platonic lingering kiss on the cheek between friends, he raised his hand as if in trance to touch his cheek.

He could still feel his cheek tingling where Dean had kissed him when the alpha was already heading for the locker room.


	13. Chapter 13

Kissing your alpha friends on the cheek was normal—right? Dean did it all the time. It was just a buddy thing. It wasn’t like he had kissed Jimmy on the lips the way he had wanted to.

Wait—not ‘wanted to.’ Absolutely not wanted to.

In any case, they hadn’t slipped each other tongue or anything. Just a buddy thing, no big deal.

To prove how not-a-big-deal this was, Dean pecked Benny on the cheek the next time he came by for a beer.

There. It felt a bit weird maybe, and it certainly didn’t make Dean feel all giddy the way it had with Jimmy, but it was just something Dean did. All. The. Time.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Benny asked, wiping his cheek.

“Greeting a friend,” Dean replied, barely holding back the ‘Duh.’

“You propositioning me? ’Cause I don’t swing that way,” Benny said and went to the living room to make himself at home.

“What? No, I don’t either!” Dean hurried after him so that he could explain, “C’mon, it’s just an alpha thing. We do it all the time.”

Benny furrowed his brows. “If you mean ‘we’ as in ‘you and me,’ then no. We’ve never done that.”

Oh, what did Benny know—he was completely useless! Maybe not _every_ alpha used the old cheek kiss as a sign of affection for friends. It was still an alpha buddy thing, though.

“Just fuck him and get it out of your system, but don’t come on to your friends,” Benny said.

“What?!” Dean spluttered. That was _so_ not what this was about! “Alphas kiss each other all the time!”

Benny raised his eyebrows. “They fuck each other too if they’re into that.”

And Sam said _Dean_ was the alpha macho type. Dean rolled his eyes. At least he wasn’t thinking an innocent kiss on the cheek made you alphasexual.

“Whatever you tell yourself, big guy. Want a beer?”

⁂

“What if I want to get intimate with an alpha?” Cas blurted out.

Balthazar had just been about to leave after checking in on him, and he stopped dead in his tracks. “That won’t be possible,” he said slowly. “No one can know your identity.”

“I wouldn’t have to tell him my real name,” Cas quickly replied. “Just that I’m an omega.”

But Balthazar didn’t bite. “Just hang in there a little while longer.”

“Yes, but you said that _weeks_ ago.”

“We’re getting closer each day.” He’d said _that_ weeks ago, too. “If you’re so… tightly wound, I would suggest using omega toys.”

And that was the helpful advice Balthazar left him with.

Maybe the fact he was still mad at Balthazar was the reason for what happened next.

Cas was in the bathroom, reapplying the stupid alpha scent when he dropped the bottle in the sink and the alpha scent emptied down the drain.

Great. That was his last one. Now he wouldn’t even be allowed to leave the house until Monday when he’d get a new one. After all, he couldn’t just buy any alpha scent—it had to be the same brand, which was imported from… India or something. Balthazar always got it for him.

Saying no to Dean when he invited him to come along to a bar Saturday evening was bad enough, especially since Cas could just imagine Dean bringing home some omega again.

But then, things got even more complicated when Dean came back home alone and wanted to hang out like they usually did at this time of night.

By that time the alpha scent had to have worn off, so Cas tried to cover his scent with as much cologne as possible before he opened the door to let Dean in.

The plan had been to come up with a flimsy excuse and get rid of Dean, but the alpha just said, “Whoa! Did you take a bath in that cologne?” and went right past Cas to their usual couch hangout, kicking off his shoes on the way.

“Uhm…” Oh, well, he was covered in the scent of that cologne anyway and Cas _had_ been worried about Dean picking up omegas all night, so having him here in his house instead of knotting some omega somewhere was actually appeasing his own omega.

“The gang missed you tonight,” Dean said apropos of nothing when Cas joined him on the couch. “Charlie was grumpy because she had no one to talk geek with, and Benny said you still owed him a Short Trip to Purgatory. What’s that about anyway? I mean, who in their right mind would even order that?!”

Cas wasn’t really paying attention because he was still stuck on the sentence _the gang missed you_.

He had been so focused on not falling in love with Dean (an endeavor he had failed in spectacularly) that he hadn’t even realized that he had put down roots here—found a place where he belonged, people he trusted.

He wouldn’t want to leave here even when this was all over.

“Jim? You listening?” Dean brought him out of his thoughts.

“What? Oh, yes. It was just a bet.”

“A bet, huh? Yeah, I should have warned you: don’t bet against Benny.”

Cas hummed in agreement.

“So, what’s the story there?”

They spent the next hour or so talking and then, inevitably, things got quieter as exhaustion took over, and the mumbled conversation turned to whispered conversation turned to nonverbal conversation that mostly consisted of leaning against each other. Dean’s eyes started drooping soon after and he slowly blinked them open one more time to look into Cas’.

“You’ve got pretty eyes,” he mumbled, but it might also have been ‘shitty pies’ or ‘lies’ or a thousand other things that would make much more sense for Dean to say, so Cas didn’t read too much into it and certainly didn’t let his poor heart swell with happiness.

After all, happiness was fleeting and hope could be squashed in an instant.

Dean’s eyes had drifted closed for good and his breathing had evened out.

Cas, on the other hand, couldn’t think of falling asleep. For once, the reason wasn’t that he was scared of nightmares or of alphas showing up to take him back.

Instead, the thought of the friends he had made here filled him with a nervous energy that made sleep seem like a distant possibility. And then there was Dean who might just have been talking about Cas’ eyes after all. Who had kissed his cheek not too long ago. Who had locked eyes with him when he had been sexually intimate with an omega. Who had sent Cas into heat by touching _him_ intimately.

Who… was turning to nuzzle into Cas right now to seek out his scent gland.

Cas was sitting stock-still, no idea if he should jump up or just stay where he was. Dean was asleep. The cologne was hopefully still covering his scent at least partly. Getting up might only wake Dean up and draw unwanted attention to the fact that Cas was trying to hide something.

So, Cas stayed right where he was. (It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Dean sniffing at his scent gland felt kind of nice.)

⁂

Dean was in a maze, trying to find his way to someone. There was that omega’s scent again, hidden beneath a layer of a penetrating scent Dean didn’t care for, but the omega had to be close.

He sniffed the air and just knew that he had to find this omega!

He took a left turn and there—vanishing around the corner was someone. It had to be him! The mystery omega!

Dean immediately gave chase, running after the omega at full speed—and the next second, he was chasing Jimmy in the gym.

The other alpha evaded him time and time again until Dean finally managed to wrestle him down.

Jimmy was lying on his back, looking up at him, tilting his head ever so slightly, a clear invitation that Dean took him up on without hesitation.

He finally buried his nose in that scent gland and scented him good. And there was that scent again, not Jimmy’s alpha scent, but that intoxicating scent Dean had been chasing.

He wanted to taste that scent! Wanted to taste Jimmy. So he ducked down and licked a stripe up Jimmy’s neck right to his scent gland and began sucking on it.

⁂

Dean’s tongue darted out and caressed his scent gland, which felt _so good_ , so _unbelievably_ good that Cas wanted to bare his neck further to give Dean better access.

His scent gland was tingling in anticipation of another touch form Dean’s lips and tongue.

But then Cas came to his senses. Molesting Dean in his sleep was not something a good friend would do. He had just been thinking about how he trusted his friends here, trusted _Dean_ —he should not betray Dean’s trust in return.

The alpha was probably dreaming about some omega, and Cas could not let this go on just because it felt good for him.

Slowly and carefully, he extracted himself from Dean and laid him down on the couch.

Dean made a questioning sound in his sleep but didn’t wake up.

Later, when Cas had made sure Dean was comfortable and taken care of and he laid down in his bed, his scent gland was still feeling overly sensitive from where Dean had sniffed and licked at it.


	14. Chapter 14

The awesome smell was receding, leaving Dean alone, which made his alpha anxious. Clearly, he had to find his omega again. Or was it his alpha? It was very hard to think for some reason. The only thing he knew: He could not let that scent escape!

It wasn’t easy, especially because he found himself back in that damned maze. But he was determined; his nose had locked on to that scent and he followed it until he found his omega again at last. Finally, he could sink back into the cushions with a sigh and hold on to him, just in case the omega tried to leave him once more.

⁂

Cas would have bet that he’d wake up tons of times that night, with his omega all restless like he’d been when he’d gone to bed. Instead, the next time he woke up, he was well rested and his inner clock told him that it was about time to get up.

Somehow, staying in bed for a while longer sounded so much better, though, especially since he could cuddle right up to his favorite scent in the world.

Deciding to take a peek at what was going on, he realized Dean was practically sprawled on top of him, his arm securely wrapped around Cas’ midsection and a leg thrown across his thighs, pinning him in place in a protective way that made Cas’ omega jump with joy on the inside.

Dean, unaware of his protective display, let his hand travel lower to rest on Cas’ stomach, sending a tingling feeling through his body. This was way too nice for him to question how they had ended up in bed together in the first place.

When Dean slowly blinked his own eyes open and their eyes locked, a smile spread across the alpha’s face and then, unexpectedly, he went for Cas’ scent gland again—this time fully (or, well, at least half) conscious—and placed a kiss right there.

They didn’t say a word, but just stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, Dean’s eyes deliberately dipped down to his lips and he brought his hand up to cup Cas’ cheek before he slowly leaned closer.

Cas could always blame the fact that he himself was still caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness for why he just leaned in himself until their lips met in a short and sweet kiss. More of a peck really. Not much of a difference to Dean kissing him on the cheek. Except that it was on the lips.

As short and innocent as the kiss had been, though, his omega immediately declared it the best ever.

⁂

Waking up in a bed next to Jimmy was new. As comfortable as the couch was, it was nothing compared to all the room they had in bed. Not that they were currently making use of it since Dean was lying half on top of Jimmy.

It had been instincts more than anything that had made Dean lean in. Sleep-tousled Jimmy looked really adorable after all.

They were still half asleep. That’s what it was. It was just a good morning kiss. Alphas should totally be allowed to kiss each other good morning. That was just a healthy sign of friendship.

Wait—what was that scent? He leaned back, getting ready to scent for it, but he was distracted when Jimmy fell right out of bed.

“Shower,” he mumbled as he scrambled to his feet, and the next second he was gone.

Only then did Dean realize that he was sporting some serious morning wood. He hoped Jimmy didn’t think he had been coming on to him—which was so not what he’d been doing.

Now that he was fully awake for good, he realized that they hadn’t gone to bed together the night before, which meant… He had to have slipped into bed with Jimmy in the middle of the night. That was probably why the other alpha had made a quick retreat.

Getting up himself, he went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. The shower had started running in the meantime, but he really had to clear things up here.

“Hey, Jim?”

There was a brief pause, which made Dean wonder if Jimmy had heard him over the running water. Then, Jimmy called back, “You may have noticed that I’m in the shower right now? If you have to use the bathroom, yours is a one minute walk away.”

“No. I just… Sorry about crowding you. I guess I must have, y’know… sleepwalked or something. I do that sometimes.” It hadn’t happened since he’d been a kid, but whatever.

Having this conversation with a door between them and Jimmy in the shower _was_ kind of weird. Maybe he should have waited, but it was too late now.

“That’s okay. The bed is big enough.”

Only, they hadn’t really used the available space… But Dean wouldn’t be the one to point that out if Jimmy decided to ignore that little tidbit.

⁂

Dean had taken care of his morning wood situation in his own shower. His dick didn’t seem interested in fantasizing about omegas and somehow, Dean had let his thoughts drift in a different direction.

What would have happened if Jimmy _hadn’t_ fallen out of bed? Jimmy hadn’t been opposed to the good morning kiss. And Dean’s dick had already been hard and in need of attention. Would it really have been so bad if Jimmy had helped him out and Dean would have used his ass to find release? Maybe they could have done a bit more kissing while Dean would have slipped his dick into the alpha’s ass.

So, apparently he was back to masturbating to thoughts of Jimmy.

That was it. He had postponed thinking about it long enough. Since his friends hadn’t been very helpful, he decided that the internet would probably be able to help him make sense of what was going on.

Google quickly suggested some threads where alphas asked all kinds of stupid questions like ‘Is it alphasexual to mate another alpha?’

I mean, _come on_! That was literally the _definition_ of alphasexual. How stupid were the alphas on here?

Then there was the alpha who talked about how he’d been living with that other alpha for a few years and they were trying to adopt and now all of a sudden, his ‘roommate’ had proposed mating out of nowhere. Neither of them was alphasexual according to the alpha who had started the thread, so the proposal had caught him out of left field.

Yeah, right. Alphas who were in the closet were really great at deluding themselves, it seemed.

Since Dean was fed up reading through ridiculous posts like these where it was painfully obvious that the alpha in question _was_ alphasexual, he quickly created an account and started his own thread, keeping it short and to the point: ‘Is it alphasexual to fantasize about fucking another alpha in the ass?’

He had to wait a while until the first reply came in.

Muskyalphadude wrote, ‘Nah you put your cock into omegas’ asses all the time. Wanting to stick it into someone’s ass is just alphas being alphas.’

That… made sense actually. Was it really so different to fucking an omega? Sure, there’d be no slick, and the alpha might pop a knot. But there was always synthetic slick they could use and the knot… well… that would need some getting used to, but he had one himself, so he’d be able to figure out what to do with it.

After that, more replies poured in.

There were some that might have been intended as sarcastic, like, ‘Bite his neck while you’re fucking him too so that he knows who has a claim on him.’ And there were even some who called him a ‘troll.’

All in all, it was rather unhelpful because some said being attracted to another alpha like that made him alphasexual, while others said he was fine, that it was a natural urge and that he should go and make that alpha submit to him.

‘But don’t forget to kiss him too,’ someone wrote.

That one might have been one of the sarcastic ones, so Dean decided not to mention that he had kind of already done that.


	15. Chapter 15

Cas hadn’t been able to think of anything other than The Kiss all day. He had learned from Dean that alphas were rather touchy-feely—hugging, squeezing each other’s shoulders, even kissing each other’s cheeks.

But when their lips had met in that gentlest of kisses, just softly brushing against each other, his omega hadn’t been able to accept it as a normal alpha friendship-type sign of affection. Surely, that wasn’t what alphas did with each other.

Even if it was, that didn’t change the fact that he himself had felt the kiss deep in his bones, his omega rejoicing that the alpha was showing interest in him. As short as it had been, the kiss had made Cas’ infatuation soar, bringing the tingling feeling in his arms, legs, and deep in his belly back with a vengeance.

He almost could have gotten lost in the kiss, but Dean had leaned back, ready to scent—which had brought him back down to earth with a jolt. Memories of the broken bottle of alpha scent and trying to cover his own scent with cologne for Dean’s benefit made him panic, and he promptly fell out of bed.

He had barely escaped Dean and his alpha nose that might have figured him out.

Still, his mind flashed back to that short moment of bliss before he had remembered that Dean couldn’t know. That Dean thought he was an alpha and wasn’t interested in alphas like that.

When Cas finally got the replacement for his alpha scent, he was relieved beyond belief. As long as he was careful and didn’t let another bottle end up in pieces, there was no way for Dean to scent him out.

⁂

Dean’s alpha really wanted to kiss Jimmy again. That much was obvious. And not on the cheek. Well, there too—but mostly on the lips. That little taste he had gotten had not been enough. It hadn’t been enough by a long shot.

Sarcastic comments on the internet aside, biting at Jimmy’s neck a bit did actually sound just like what his alpha needed. Maybe it was just alpha competitiveness. Playful alpha fights to determine the rank weren’t really done anymore once you reached a certain age, but the instincts were still there. Dean’s alpha might just want to assert his dominance in order to show Jimmy that he was the higher-ranking alpha. Clear up the hierarchy as it were, that was all.

The opportunity presented itself during their next training session. Dean was panting heavily by the time he had Jimmy pinned—the other alpha had gotten _really_ good and was giving him a run for his money.

Now or never.

He leaned down and gave Jimmy’s neck a little nibble. Just a little ‘hey, I’m the higher-ranking alpha here.’

Jimmy stilled underneath him—and then went ahead and friggen _bared his neck_. Just like that. No fight for dominance, he was just readily submitting to Dean’s alpha as if it were no big deal.

And that should have been that. They were both clear on where they stood in the ranking order. Dean should just accept Jimmy’s acceptance and they would be done here.

Yet, other urges overcame Dean and he leaned down again to nibble along Jimmy’s neck more insistently.

_Bite his neck while you’re fucking him too so that he knows who has a claim on him._

Yes! Dean wanted Jimmy to know that he had a claim on him, so he made sure his teeth took hold of Jimmy’s neck real good, and then he bit with more intent, hoping to leave a mark.

Jimmy, meanwhile, wasn’t just lying there anymore, but had buried his face in Dean’s neck in return and was scenting him as if his life depended on it. That only spurred Dean on more. Getting scented never failed to get his alpha instincts going.

Underneath him, Jimmy whimpered—a wanton sound that reminded Dean so much of an omega ready to be mounted that his dick was hard and anticipating some action in no time.

He quickly scrambled to his feet, hoping that Jimmy wouldn’t look at his groin.

“So…” Dean cleared his throat. “Just so we’re clear that I’m the higher-ranking alpha.” That’s what this exercise had been about, after all. At least it seemed important that _Jimmy_ knew that that’s what had been going on here.

Jimmy just blinked up at him, the mark on his neck an angry red from where Dean had licked and nibbled and bitten at it. It kind of looked like a hickey, but of course that’s not what it was. It was simply a sign of Dean’s victory in this strange kind of alpha fight.

⁂

Cas had been left confused by Dean’s behavior once more. The alpha had initiated foreplay only to withdraw unexpectedly. As it turned out, it hadn’t been foreplay at all, Dean had only wanted to engage in a little bit of power play between alphas. Cas had always thought that was just something teenage alphas did, but apparently not.

Having Dean bite at his neck had been exhilarating—as was wearing his mark, even if it hadn’t been intended as a claim but was just the result of a macho alpha thing Cas still didn’t quite understand.

Still, wearing the mark of the alpha he was in love with made his omega all giddy and put him into a good mood, no matter the stupid reasons Dean had put the mark there.

That was, until Balthazar got all concerned about it when he saw it.

“Maybe I should see what I can do about relocating you,” he mused once Cas had explained that Dean hadn’t really meant anything by it. “That alpha has you in his sights and I don’t like him sniffing around.”

Cas’ heart skipped a beat at the thought that he might have to leave the new life he had found with Dean… that he had found _here_ behind. The nightmares had all but stopped, and he was pretty sure that he had a certain alpha to thank for that.

“You said living next door to an alpha would be no problem,” Cas reminded his handler, mouth dry.

“I also remember telling you to stay away from him,” Balthazar grumbled. Then he got up. Before he left, he told Cas, “Give me a call if he makes advances towards you.”

“He’s not even into alphas,” Cas mumbled, still miffed that Balthazar hadn’t given him the okay to do anything with an alpha.

⁂

A couple of days after the incident at the gym, their little gang was at Dean and Jimmy’s favorite burger joint. They also had some rabbit food for Sam there, but Jimmy liked a good burger almost as much as Dean did, and Benny didn’t care, so they could easily overrule Sam when he wanted to go somewhere else.

Jimmy had just excused himself to the bathroom when Benny turned towards Dean and asked, “You gonna tell us who Jimmy is dating?”

“What?” Dean stopped mid-chew and put his burger down. Since when was Jimmy dating anyone? Surely, he would have told Dean if there was some would-be alpha he was interested in, right? “He isn’t dating anyone!”

“Did you see his neck?” Sam butted in. “Some alpha clearly staked a claim on him.”

Oh, he was only referring to the mark on Jimmy’s neck. His appetite, which he had temporarily lost, was back, and he took another bite from his burger as he waved Sam and Benny off.

“Nah, that was just me.” Two pairs of eyebrows shoot up at that, and Dean realized how that sounded, so he explained, “I kinda got into an alpha fight with him the other day.”

Sam rolled his eyes and Benny remained unimpressed. “And…?” he asked.

“And what?” Dean asked right back, taking a swig from his beer.

Benny didn’t bat an eye as he clarified, “And you fucked it out? ’Cause that’s what he looks like.”

Dean chocked on his beer and had to cough a few times before he could answer. “Of course not! I won, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” Benny said, noncommittal.

“Aren’t you a bit old for getting into alpha fights?” Sam asked, disapproving. “And with one of your best friends, what’s that about?”

Fortunately, they had to interrupt their interrogation at that moment because Jimmy came back.

Unfortunately, Benny had no sense of decorum and once Jimmy was in his seat again, he just motioned towards the bite mark with his beer bottle and said, a slight smirk on his face, “So, we hear Dean is responsible for that.”

He should have just let them assume Jimmy was dating someone…

Interestingly enough, Jimmy’s cheeks turned a nice shade of pink and he didn’t really say anything to that, apart from mumbling a few words none of them caught. He did glance at Dean, though, before looking down at his plate, cheeks still aflame. Something told Dean that it wasn’t because he had lost the alpha fight.

The alpha within him thought it was rather cute and couldn’t wait to have Jimmy underneath him once more so that he could renew that hickey—winning bite… whatever.


	16. Chapter 16

Having discovered a new way of making Jimmy blush, Dean found himself teasing the other alpha more and more so that he could see his flustered reaction. Something about looking Jimmy up and down and saying, “Lookin’ handsome today” with a wink was fun, especially when Jimmy’s ears turned an alarming shade of red and he started babbling.

It seemed like Jimmy wasn’t good at taking compliments, so Dean made it his mission to change that. It was easy because there was so much about him you could compliment. He was really the most awesome person. Of course, Jimmy blushed again when Dean told him that.

One evening, only a couple of days later when Dean was just working the lotion into Jimmy’s back—his scars actually did start to look better, Dean was happy to note—he crossed the fine line between teasing a friend and freaking said friend out by coming on too strong.

He hadn’t even really been out to tease Jimmy at all. Ever since Benny had mentioned the mark on his neck, Jimmy had gotten into the habit of wearing turtleneck shirts. Now, he had finally taken it off so that Dean could apply the lotion, and the fading mark was almost calling out to Dean.

Jimmy was lying on Dean’s bed because that was simply the easiest position for him to work the lotion into the scars, and Dean brushed across the mark on his neck and said, “Looks good on you.”

It was just a truthful remark, but he felt Jimmy tense under his hands. Ignoring the sign, Dean pushed his luck. “That was a fun alpha fight the other day, huh?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it an alpha fight…” Jimmy mumbled into the pillows.

“Maybe we could do it again,” Dean suggested. “I could renew that mark.” He brushed over it again with his thumb and was fascinated to see Jimmy shudder under his touch. And then he couldn’t resist making a flippant, teasing remark, “Makes you look really sexy.”

Jimmy turned around and sat up, putting some distance between Dean and himself. “Dean—what are you doing?”

Dean shrugged, not quite sure himself as he wiped his hands on his pants to get rid of the remaining lotion. “Nothing. Just teasin’.”

“Because that’s what alpha buddies do?” Jimmy said and got up off the bed to put on his shirt, even though the lotion hadn’t even been absorbed yet.

“Well… yeah,” Dean agreed, sensing that he was being lured into a trap with that question.

Sure enough, Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest and said, “As you well know, I am attracted to alphas, and you’re a very… you’re…” He blushed again, but this time, Dean couldn’t really enjoy it. “A very attractive alpha,” Jimmy finished. “So, in summation, I don’t think renewing the mark is a good idea because my…” There was a short pause before he continued, “…alpha won’t see it as an alpha buddy thing.”

“What’re you saying?” Dean asked, his head rushing with everything he had just heard. “You… think of me like that?”

“What do you think?” Jimmy replied, sarcasm bleeding through. “Your alpha is chasing me around and then you take me by the neck and…” He sighed and then started again, “It’s just sending the wrong signals.” And when Dean just blinked at him, he explained, “For me, it’s a sign of affection.”

Okay, that… That was actually not far off from what it had felt like to Dean. “So what if it _is_ a sign of affection?”

“Not a sign of affection between _friends_ ,” Jimmy clarified.

This situation was slipping away from him fast. He just wanted to nibble on Jimmy’s neck a bit, what was the big deal? Maybe kiss him again. Just make him feel good. If Jimmy ended up submitting to him again—then all the better.

“Do we have to label it? We both had fun in the alpha fight…”

Jimmy threw his hands in the air. “Dean, wake up! For me, that wasn’t an ‘alpha fight,’ that was you asking permission to court!”

That proclamation was followed by a beat of silence, Dean’s head buzzing as his mind tried to see what they had done in a different light.

Finally, he could grasp a thought long enough to say, “Alphas don’t court each other.” Even as he said it, some part of him realized what a dumb thing it was to say. Because clearly, _alphasexual_ alphas did.

For a moment, Jimmy just looked at him, opening and then closing his mouth.

Then he agreed, a sad tilt to his mouth, “No, they don’t,” and walked out on the first real fight they had ever had.

⁂

In an attempt to escape the mess that was his feelings, Dean opened the first bottle of beer.

He couldn’t stand the idea of Jimmy being mad at him, and so he replayed how things had escalated so quickly in his mind on a loop.

_You’re a very attractive alpha._

_For me, it’s a sign of affection._

Inevitably, his mind would flash back to the alpha fight—which, apparently, hadn’t been an alpha fight at all.

Now that he thought about it, it hadn’t really been about putting Jimmy in his place, and more about putting a claim on him. Marking him as _Dean’s_ alpha. And yes, getting him to submit, but not necessarily because he wanted to clear up the rank order, but more because… because of something that definitely needed a second bottle of beer before he could even think about it.

Halfway through said second bottle, it became easier to admit to himself that what he’d been doing these last few days wasn’t just tease Jimmy, but flirt with him. Maybe that had been a bit insensitive of him, leading on his alphasexual friend…

Third bottle.

But had he really led him on? He had said nothing but the truth, even when he had told Jimmy how sexy the mark on his neck made him look. Of course, that mark would look good to the alpha who had put it there. It had made Dean want to kiss it and gently stroke it… with his tongue… and then they could have made out for a bit…

Jimmy found him attractive. He found Jimmy attractive. What was keeping them from doing some alphasexual stuff to each other?

Oh. Right. Dean wasn’t into alphas.

Fourth bottle.

Except that apparently, he was. Or into Jimmy, at least.

He was way too old to suddenly find out that he wasn’t exclusively into omegas. But here he was. In love with an alpha.

An alpha he had just scared away because he had been too stubborn to admit what he truly wanted.

He could be holding Jimmy in his arms right now in one of their nightly keeping-each-other-company sessions. Instead, Jimmy was one house away, mad at him for saying stupid shit.

There was no way Dean would be able to go to bed while they were in a fight, so a short while later, he found himself leaning against the doorframe of Jimmy’s front door, waiting for the alpha to answer.

When he did, Dean quickly started his apology, “Maybe it’s the right signals. You ever think of that?”

Jimmy frowned at him. “What?”

“You said it’s sending the wrong signals,” Dean reminded him. “With the… with the biting and the…” His brain wasn’t really great at forming words, so he just made a motion with his hand that was supposed to fill in the blanks. “But what if it’s sending the right signals?”

Jimmy sighed. “Dean. You’re omegasexual.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking.” He licked his lips before taking the plunge. “Maybe not so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all of my commenters for the support on the last chapter! 💖 It really motivated me so that here's the next update already (way too early, I know, I couldn't wait once I had finished it). I hope you like this chapter as well. 😊
> 
> Finally some progress in the form of self-awareness, more or less. So... what do you think, what's about to happen and what would you like to see?


	17. Chapter 17

Jimmy opened his mouth, and Dean could see from the frown on his face that he was about to say something Dean didn’t want to hear, so he made sure he was quicker.

“No—hear me out! All I can think about is biting you again.” Wait. That came out wrong. “Also, y’know. Your lips are kissable.” There, better.

“Dean—” Jimmy started with a sigh, and that didn’t sound good, which meant that Dean had to actually come up with some convincing arguments here.

“You let me kiss them before!” Best argument ever! Dean grinned, proud of himself. Let’s see Jimmy try to say something against that sound logic.

“When you were half asleep.”

“So? I’m wide awake now.” Seriously—why weren’t they kissing? Jimmy had all but told him that he was into Dean. And here Dean was, telling him that he was into him too. They were into _each other_.

“And intoxicated. Just—go sleep it off.” And then Jimmy added, under his breath, “You’ll probably have forgotten in the morning.”

That’s when he realized: Jimmy thought this was some sort of drunken experiment for him. Just because he had been kind of slow on the uptake and hadn’t immediately recognized the attraction between them as such.

“Look, Jim…” he started, intent on clearing up that misunderstanding, but Jimmy interrupted him.

“Go home, Dean.” They stared into each other’s eyes, the way they tended to do, which Dean only now realized might be another clue that they were more than simple alpha buddies. “We’re good,” Jimmy reassured him, which reminded Dean that he’d completely forgotten the other part of what he’d wanted to say.

“I’m sorry.”

Jimmy’s eyes softened at that and he looked almost forlorn. “Me too.”

And even though they’d apologized to each other, their fight officially over—Dean didn’t really feel a lot better.

He knew what would make him feel better, though, and his tipsy brain had no problems ordering his mouth to say it, “If we’re really ‘good,’ you should come over. Make sure we can catch some z’s.”

⁂

What Cas should be doing was sending Dean away for good. That would be the reasonable thing to do. He was the one who had told Dean he was sending mixed signals, after all. Going over to cuddle with the alpha would send the wrong signals too—even though it was obvious that Dean wouldn’t be here hitting on him if he were sober.

So, yes, telling Dean to go and sleep in his own bed, alone, was the rational thing to do. And Castiel was nothing if not rational.

And yet… He had felt so horrible after his fight with Dean, close to tears actually, and his omega desperately needed to be held by the alpha right now. Plus, Dean was right. It was what they would normally do.

That’s why, against all reason, he heard himself say, “Yes, let’s catch them.” When Dean just looked at him blankly, he added, “The z’s.”

Maybe he wasn’t so rational after all. Maybe he was weak, and saying no to being in Dean’s arms was simply impossible. No wonder—it was where he felt safest in the world.

⁂

Being cuddled up to a sleeping Jimmy on the couch, the TV flickering, but muted, Dean finally felt his alpha calm down.

He couldn’t believe that, even though he had kind of made a fool of himself, Jimmy had agreed to do their usual nightly routine thingy. Good thing he had, because Dean’s alpha would have gone nuts if he had thought he’d irreparably damaged their friendship.

Now, he needed a plan for how to proceed from here. Drunken half-assed confessions clearly couldn’t land him an alpha like Jimmy. Of course, he deserved more than that. Dean would have to make sure Jimmy knew he wasn’t just some kind of alphasexual experiment for him.

So, the clear plan of action was to let his brain come up with a better plan in the morning once it was well-rested. With that thought, he turned off the TV, let his head rest against Jimmy’s and closed his tired eyes.

⁂

The next morning, Dean woke up alone, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Sometimes, Jimmy was still there, other times, he wasn’t—that’s just how their little routine worked.

In the light of day, a couple of things became clear: first, his drunken realization that he was into Jimmy was still true, and second, Jimmy had thought the alpha fight that hadn’t been an alpha fight had instead been Dean asking for permission to court him.

So far, so good. But what Dean only now realized was: Jimmy hadn’t rejected Dean’s perceived advances. He had, in fact, bared his neck and encouraged Dean to keep going, enthusiastically scenting him in return.

That meant he had given Dean his permission to court him.

The thought was a bit strange—he had never courted an alpha before, but then again, he had never really courted an omega either, so this was uncharted territory for him either way. He had always gone for what he wanted, though, and now that he had figured out that he wanted _Jimmy_ , it was pretty clear what he had to do.

Luckily for him, his favorite TV show wasn’t just hilarious, but Doctor Sexy had courted Doctor Piccolo for a while now, so Dean knew all about the right courting behavior that would eventually land him the omega—or, well, alpha in this case.

First on the list: little tokens of affection.

He could make a mean burger that Jimmy loved, so he invited him over for dinner.

Jimmy seemed just as happy to ignore what had transpired the night before as him, which was why it didn’t take them long to get back into their easy camaraderie. They had always just felt… comfortable in each other’s presence, so halfway through the meal, they were back to joking and laughing together like they had before Dean had put his foot in his mouth.

When Dean excused himself to the bathroom, he took a little detour to put a small bottle of the scar cream into Jimmy’s trench coat pocket. He had attached a note that told Jimmy he could come over for a massage any time—which, sure, wasn’t any different to what they usually did, but he hoped that after everything, this should make his intentions clear.

It wasn’t like he had wanted to snoop, but when he put the bottle of cream into Jimmy’s pocket, there was already a bottle of something else inside: a bottle of alpha scent.

Dean looked at it, puzzled.

Before he could take a closer look, however, the bottle was ripped from his hands. He hadn’t even heard Jimmy walk up behind him.

Jimmy quickly shoved the bottle into his pants pocket and asked, uncharacteristically harsh, “What are you doing with my enhancers?”

“Uhm…” Dean said, feeling a bit steamrolled. “Enhancers?”

“Yes. I… If you must know. My natural scent isn’t very… strong. Hence…” He motioned towards his pants pocket.

Huh. He never would have taken Jimmy for the type. Weren’t enhancers used to attract omegas? Or maybe other alphas in Jimmy’s case. Either way, Dean never would have guessed that Jimmy was self-conscious about his scent.

His mind immediately wondered what a possible scenting session would be like. A weak scent probably meant he’d have to press his nose right up against Jimmy’s scent gland and really go to town on it in order to get a good whiff. Yeah, he could totally make that work, no problem.

Plus, everyone knew that enhancers could mess with your scent, so maybe the fact that he didn’t much care for Jimmy’s scent was actually due to those enhancers.

As a matter of fact, he was really curious about scenting Jimmy. And since they were courting now, they were totally allowed to do it. It wasn’t like they had to be wary of some friendship line they weren’t supposed to cross anymore. Scenting counted as perfectly normal courting behavior.

So, Dean felt completely within his rights to suggest, “Hey, wanna scent each other?”

Jimmy gaped at him. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, you know. Let’s check out those enhancers.” Actually, that was pretty much the opposite of what Dean wanted to do, but it was as good an excuse as any. And maybe he’d be able to sniff out which part were the enhancers and which part was all Jimmy.

Unfortunately, Jimmy wasn’t on board. “That is highly inappropriate,” he deadpanned.

He was one to talk. He’d had his nose buried in Dean’s scent gland only a few days ago.

Dean refrained from pointing that out, though. He would get his chance to scent Jimmy back one day, he was sure.

⁂

Cas had had to lie to Dean, _again_. Enhancers had been the first thing that had sprung to mind. Luckily, Dean had bought it, but Cas was sick of all the lies.

Finding the scar cream with the nice note from Dean did nothing to ease his guilty conscience.

The attraction didn’t seem to be one-sided. Yes, Dean had been inebriated when he had come on to him, but he had been stone sober just now, when he had suggested they scent each other. Of course, Cas had wanted to say yes, but… There was always that stupid ‘but.’

If only Dean knew, they could engage in some _real_ scenting. That one time in the gym had been pure bliss when he had forgotten himself for a moment (no wonder—Dean had had him by the _neck_ ) and had just unashamedly sought out Dean’s scent gland.

He still remembered Balthazar’s little speech, though, when he had put him up here. _Do as I say, and you’ll survive._

He really shouldn’t consider going against Balthazar’s orders. That way lay danger.

Only, this was _Dean_ and if he told him not to tell anyone else, he wouldn’t. Plus, he didn’t have to tell Dean _every_ thing. Just that his stupid fake secondary gender designation was, well… fake. Then they could scent each other without Cas having to fear that Dean might scent something he wasn’t supposed to.

Stupid Balthazar and his stupid rules! How long did he expect Cas to live like this? It wasn’t like they had made much progress. Mike was still out there, hurting omegas. Meanwhile, all Cas got were empty phrases like ‘bound to make a mistake’ or ‘we have to be patient.’

Cas deserved to feel safe for once. To be happy. And if Dean made him feel those things, then as long as they both wanted it, he should get to scent this alpha as much as he damn well pleased! He couldn’t wait around for the FBI to catch the monster he was running from, which could take days or months—or maybe even years.

He had half a mind to tell Balthazar all of that, but he didn’t want to give him a chance to say no again. So instead, he was back on Dean’s front porch, heart hammering in his throat, stomach fluttering with nerves, but determined.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” he started, and Dean had to realize that this was important because the bright smile he had greeted Cas with slowly slipped off his face and made way for his serious listening face.

Of course, that’s when Cas’ cell phone buzzed with a message, and as angry as he was at Balthazar, he couldn’t ignore the rule that said he always had to answer his cell. He was breaking enough rules as it was.

“One second,” he told Dean as he pulled out his cell phone.

A cold shiver ran down his spine when he saw the text. The next second, the cell phone slipped from his fingers and dropped to the floor.


	18. Chapter 18

The change in Jimmy’s demeanor had Dean instantly on edge. All color drained from Jimmy’s face when he looked at his cell, and something happened to his scent. The same thing that Dean had picked up on multiple times in the past. The same thing that awakened all kinds of instincts in him, to scent, and calm and protect Jimmy at all costs.

The cell phone hit the floor with a thud.

“Hey, you okay?” Dean asked, which was a stupid question because obviously, Jimmy was nowhere near ‘okay.’

But Dean’s instincts were going haywire. There were so many things he wanted to do all at once: reach out and wrap Jimmy up in a comforting hug, look for danger, rip whoever made Jimmy smell all scared a new one…

Yet, before he could do any of those things, Jimmy stepped on the cell phone and crushed it. Then, he bent down to pick it up and mumbled something about needing to go.

The next second, he had turned around and was hurrying back to his own house. Dean was left reeling, all of his protective instincts left without an outlet, still no idea what had gotten Jimmy all freaked out.

⁂

Cas’ thoughts were tumbling one over the other.

_C you soon._

Sent from a suppressed number.

It could only mean one thing.

But how had he gotten the number?

Did that mean he knew where Cas was?

That he was on his way?

He needed to call Balthazar! Only his cell phone was broken. He’d reacted on instinct, destroying it in an attempt to keep Mike from being able to track him. Even though Mike would have done that already if it was possible. In any case: Cas couldn’t call Balthazar with his cell phone. Which meant he had to use the landline.

Flight instincts were pushing him to leave everything behind and run as fast and as far as he could. At the same time, his rational mind knew that that was the wrong thing to do. It was probably what Mike _wanted_ him to do.

Here, he had allies. Here, he had people who could protect him.

He needed to focus and think clearly, not let fear control him. Of course, that was easier said than done.

His fingers were trembling as he dialed the phone, and he pressed the wrong button twice before he finally managed to call his handler.

When he reached Balthazar, the agent stayed infuriatingly calm, telling him that it was unlikely that Mike had gotten the number, and maybe it was just from someone who had sent the text to the wrong number by accident.

Cas knew better. ‘ **C** you soon’—‘C’ was the name Mike had used for him. He had used letters as nicknames for all his omegas, and there had even been a ‘C2’ (Chris) and ‘C3’ (Cas hadn’t even know her real name). It was supposed to be dehumanizing, a way to show them that they were nothing, meant nothing, and that he was the one to control everything, even their names.

Finally, Balthazar told him to stay calm, that he’d send someone to pick up the cell phone (even in its broken state) so that they could take a look at it and try to find out what they could, and that he’d send a security detail just in case.

None of those things did anything to calm Cas down in any way. His omega was more terrified than he had ever been when he had still been used by alphas. Now that he’d had a taste of freedom, he couldn’t imagine ever going back there.

The only thing that could possibly calm him down was a certain alpha next door. The one thing that might be able to get rid of this feeling of despair was Dean’s scent. But there was no way that he would drag Dean into this. Not when Mike might be on his way to drag Cas back into the hellhole he’d barely survived crawling out of the last time…

Of course, he should have known that Dean wouldn’t just sit still. That alpha was too stubborn for his own good. Ask him to stay put—and five seconds later, he was at your front door, his restlessness having gotten the better of him.

“You kinda left in a hurry,” he said by way of explanation.

Cas had no idea how to react to Dean’s presence right now. He could barely hold it together as it was, and here Dean was, all concern and… looking like he could make everything better with a simple touch. Maybe a hug if Cas was lucky. If not, then his presence seemed like enough to loosen the knots in his stomach.

Dean made the decision for him by squeezing past Cas into the house, not even waiting for an invitation.

“Bad news?” he asked, nodding towards the busted cell phone next to Cas’ keys on the little table beside the door.

Cas looked up and down the street, but the agents hadn’t arrived yet, so he quickly shut the door again.

“Well… Yes,” he admitted. They looked at each other for a long moment, and when Dean didn’t say anything, Cas continued, “There are things… that you don’t know.” He trailed off, unsure of how to continue or if he had said too much already. Getting Dean into trouble was the last thing he wanted to do.

But Dean had no idea what he was in for and raised his eyebrows at him. “That what you wanted to talk to me about?”

Not really. But he couldn’t leave Dean completely in the dark, unaware of the danger he might be in by staying close to Cas.

“I’ve told you about my ex,” he started, which was still a lie, but one that came the closest to the truth.

Dean nodded, a crease forming on his forehead.

“Well… What I haven’t told you is… He’s a really cruel, dangerous alpha. A criminal, actually. And he… he might have found me.”

There. That should scare Dean away. It was for the best anyway, Cas had agents on their way, he didn’t need—

“Gotta say, that’s not really a surprise.”

What? Cas’ eyes found Dean’s in confusion.

“I mean the dangerous criminal part,” Dean clarified and then shrugged his shoulders when Cas kept staring at him. “I’ve seen the scars. Tells me all I need to know about this Mi-Mick jerk.”

Right. Domestic abuse. That’s what this was all about as far as Dean was concerned.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Cas tried to explain, desperate for Dean to grasp the real danger. “He’s very possessive. He’s _killed_ alphas over touching his property without permission.”

And Dean had kind of been touching Cas _a lot_ without Mike’s permission. Without paying Mike for any of the touches. That’s what it had always been about. Cas had brought in a lot of money and of course Mike would be mad that he had lost that income when Cas had managed to escape. Cas couldn’t even imagine what kind of punishment Mike would think up if he ever got to him.

At last, there was something like surprise flickering through Dean’s eyes. He probably hadn’t expected Cas to surround himself with murderers. Cas felt deeply ashamed admitting that, but at the same time, Dean _needed_ to know. He would never forgive himself if Dean ended up as collateral damage just because he hadn’t known when to get out of Dodge.

“So…” Cas took a deep breath, ready to give Dean the out he needed. “You don’t have to stick around here. Help is on the way…”

He hated how his voice was trembling by the end of it, betraying his bravado. Luckily, his real scent was covered by the alpha scent, concealing the scent of terrified omega. He raised his chin, hoping that it would convey confidence and ‘I’m fine’ and all those things that would tell Dean he didn’t need to worry, things were taken care of.

He had to have failed miserably, though, because the next moment, without another word, Dean was in his personal space, pulling him in for a hug, one hand on the back of his head, the other slung around his back to pull him close. The hand on the back of his neck softly guided him to the nook between Dean’s neck and his shoulder.

A clear invitation to scent, which Cas gratefully accepted, finding comfort and security on the first inhale.

“You really don’t need to…” he mumbled into Dean’s neck.

“I know,” Dean interrupted him and just kept stroking the back of his head.

Cas had been right. Dean’s scent really did manage to calm him down, the fear still there, but muted, just in the background, withdrawing to let him enjoy scenting Dean for the moment.

Dean, for his part, kept holding on and then tentatively rubbed his cheek against Cas’, asking for permission to scent him in return. All rational thought had left Cas the moment he had received that text message, so he granted permission by tilting his head ever so slightly for Dean to find the best spot to scent.

It didn’t even matter that all Dean would be able to scent was a fake scent that wasn’t even his. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t supposed to go around scenting alphas in the first place. At this point, his omega instincts had taken over and all they wanted was scent and be scented.

For a moment, everything seemed perfect. His stomach was fluttering for a whole other reason than fear—in the way it did when Dean was near, touching him.

Suddenly, Dean started scenting more deliberately, pressing his nose against Cas’ neck more intently and taking deeper whiffs.

With all the adrenaline still rushing through his body, Cas found he didn’t even care about what Dean’s keen nose was up to now. He was at the end of his rope.

So what if there were cracks appearing in the wall of lies he’d had to hide behind? Tomorrow, he might be back with Mike or relocated, in a different state, never to see Dean again. Which was why he didn’t pull back, not even when Dean crowded him against the wall for a better scenting position.

It was probably for the best that that’s when the protective detail finally arrived.


	19. Chapter 19

At first, all Dean had wanted to do was be there for Jimmy, calm him down, his protective instincts in overdrive—and the only way he had known how to do that was to let him scent Dean.

When he got permission to scent Jimmy too, though, he couldn’t help but feel that he had accomplished something big.

Seeking out his scent gland, he quickly realized that the scared scent was still there, stronger than ever, not because Jimmy was more scared (he was actually starting to calm down), but because Dean got to _really_ scent for it. This had to be what Jimmy smelled like underneath those damned enhancers.

There was something familiar about it. Dean tried to chase that scent down, not even caring that at this point, he was basically assaulting Jimmy’s scent gland by pressing his nose against it and taking deep whiffs of his scent because he would get to the bottom of this, dammit! And if he’d have to rub all of those enhancers off himself—or maybe lick them off…

But just when he had scented his way oh so close to Jimmy’s real scent, two alphas burst through the door and before Dean even realized what was the hell going on, they pulled him away from Jimmy and the young blond alpha waved a gun in his face.

All Dean’s senses were aware of was the fear in Jimmy’s scent spiking and he quickly put himself between Jimmy and the strange alphas, ready to fight them if need be.

“That’s my neighbor, that’s just my neighbor!” Jimmy yelled, trying to step around Dean, but he wouldn’t allow it and pushed him right back behind himself, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the intruders.

Finally, the alpha with the gun lowered it.

As it turned out, they were the ‘help that was coming,’ there for Jimmy’s protection.

“You’re not allowed to let strangers scent you,” the one with the expensive black suit and balding grey hair told Jimmy, his voice unnecessarily harsh.

“If anyone’s a stranger here, it’s you,” Dean shot back because who was he to tell Jimmy who he could scent?!

The suit just ignored him and turned to his partner. “Get him out of here,” he ordered with a nod towards Dean.

But Dean stood his ground and crossed his arms over his chest, not moving an inch. “Yeah, I’m not going anywhere.”

After a typical alpha standoff with some back and forth and a lot of glaring at each other, Dean was allowed to stay.

The douchebags introduced themselves as Zachariah and Bartholomew—probably fake names by the sound of it, and Dean was tempted to give a fake name too, just to mess with them, but Jimmy had already introduced him as his neighbor and Dean didn’t want to make things harder for him. They didn’t seem like the type of guys who’d appreciate a joke.

Bart (as Dean called him because it seemed to unnerve him) collected Jimmy’s cell phone and was gone for a while, as he had to take it away to be analyzed.

That left them with Zachariah who didn’t let Dean out of his sight for even a moment. As if Dean was the danger here.

It was pretty easy to rile him up, and since they were just sitting in Jimmy’s living room and things were getting boring, Dean had to find something to amuse himself with. Just to see Zach turn red again, Dean leaned towards Jimmy in scenting range, and sure enough, Zach snapped at him to keep his hands where he could see them.

Dean grinned at Jimmy, but he didn’t look amused, so Dean let his gaze drift across the room, trying to find something else to do.

It was sort of a relief when Bart came back, but by that time, it had gotten late and this time, they didn’t take no for an answer when they told Dean to go back to his own house for the night.

There was no way he’d leave Jimmy alone with these two clowns, so before he left, Dean shot him a meaningful look, eyebrows slightly raised, as he nodded his head ever so slightly towards Jimmy’s bedroom. He hoped Jimmy would understand…

⁂

After Dean had left, Cas told the agents that he was tired and wanted to go to bed, so they gave him a replacement cell phone and then sat up camp in their car in front of his house.

Cas quickly went into the bedroom and opened the window to let Dean back in.

It was a lot easier to climb out of the window than it was to climb back in, as it seemed, because Dean had some trouble and needed Cas’ help until he finally tumbled onto the bedroom floor with an ‘Oomph.’

While Dean got back up again, Cas closed the window and then turned back around to Dean, finally able to breathe normally again after the agents had all but suffocated him with their stern alphaness.

“Wow. Those are quite some grade A jerks,” Dean commented while he picked a twig out of his hair.

“They’re just doing their jobs,” Cas defended the agents, even though he secretly agreed with Dean.

He could feel as he was coming off the adrenaline from everything, starting with Mike’s text message and ending with having strange alphas in his house, even if they were there to protect him.

Wobbling on his feet a bit, he realized that the only alpha whose protection his omega craved was right here in front of him.

“You’re exhausted,” Dean realized and supported him when Cas felt his legs give out.

He led him (more like carried him) to the bed and Cas sank into the pillows with a relieved sigh. It wasn’t so much that he was exhausted. He just needed… something. _His alpha_ , his mind supplied helpfully.

Without thinking, he pulled Dean down next to him because that was what he needed and he was done denying himself what both he _and_ his omega were desperately in need of.

“Wanna pick up where we left off before the douchebags interrupted us?” Dean asked, a hopeful tone to his voice, which Cas picked up on even though he tried to sound casual. But Cas knew all of Dean’s tells by now.

All he could do was nod his head as he was already burrowing closer to get into scenting position.

 _Last night on Earth_ , shot through his head. And if he should get ripped away from Dean in the morning, then he would get as close to him as possible now while he still could.

When Dean’s nose brushed against his own scent gland, he tilted his head to the side in a very un-alphalike fashion. But his omega really needed to show Dean’s alpha the respect that he deserved, and he had wanted to show a sign of submission again ever since Dean had gone for his neck at the gym.

Dean’s alpha seemed to like what he was doing if the possessive growl was anything to go by, and he rewarded Cas by lovingly nibbling his scent gland, which sent a shiver down his spine. Emboldened by his reaction, Dean alternated between licking and biting at his neck, which only made Cas’ instincts to submit harder to control.

Giving in, he let out a whimper, letting the alpha know that he liked what he was doing. That he liked having Dean half on top of him and liked the dominant display.

Unfortunately, even his nonverbal communication skills seemed to need some work because Dean let up and looked down at him with a worried frown on his face. “’m I hurting you?” he asked.

“No. Keep… keep doing that. Please,” he added because something deep inside of him _needed_ Dean’s mouth back on his neck. It was such a thrilling sensation—all he had wanted for too long.

When Dean went back to teasing his scent gland, this time not because he thought they were in some sort of alpha fight, but very clearly because he wanted it as much as Cas did, all clicked into place as if the world had only waited for them to do this. To be intimate with each other in this way.

Of course, his scent gland was a very sensitive spot, so it really was no wonder that the tingling feeling that originated in his neck started to travel to other places. Dean was so good at making him feel… things that were supposed to be forbidden.

His omega finally had enough after having been suppressed for too long. Throwing caution to the wind, he went full on omega display of submission, baring his neck even further and showing Dean his belly in the hopes he might put his hand there and scratch it.

Suddenly, Dean stopped, his nose twitching once, twice—and that’s when Cas realized what it was he was picking up on.

There was really no mistaking the scent of slick for anything other than what it was.

“Oh,” Dean said.

There was no way for Cas to explain this one away, and in a way, he had knowingly taken that risk the second he had encouraged the scenting.

“I can explain…” he started because Dean looked dumbfounded and he deserved an explanation even though Cas had no idea what exactly to say.

Dean blinked at him and then said, still with that stunned look on his face, “You’re trans.”


	20. Chapter 20

“Yes, I’m sorry, I…”

Wait—did Dean just say ‘trans’?

“No, it’s okay, I get why you don’t want people to know, just… took me by surprise is all.”

Unbelievably, Dean was still there, holding him.

Cas should probably say something. Tell Dean that he was wrong and what was really going on. Or he could _not_ ruin the moment and take the out. Make sure Dean stayed right here next to him instead of getting mad and leaving. It wasn’t a solution for forever, naturally, but at least for tonight. He could deal with the fallout tomorrow—if there even was a tomorrow.

“You could’ve told me, you know,” Dean went on, but he kept stroking Cas, which told him that he wasn’t angry. “It wouldn’t have made me see you any differently, if that’s what you were scared of.”

There was no way Cas could say anything to that, so he tried to get back to the place of comfort from before and enjoy Dean’s arms around him. He was left a bit unsettled, though, because he realized how much he needed to hear that. Unfortunately, Dean was under the false assumption that he was a trans _alpha._ What Cas really longed to hear was that Dean wouldn’t see him differently now that he knew he was an _omega_.

Even though Cas didn’t say anything in response, Dean, apparently, wasn’t done talking about this. “You’re the most awesome alpha I know, and I…”

“Dean… stop,” Cas interrupted him, squirming around uncomfortably. If only Dean knew how wrong he was. “Can’t this… just be about us? Not about any secondary gender designations?”

“No, yeah. Of course.”

They went back to scenting and touching in silence for a while, but it was hard to find his inner peace. After all, this wasn’t real. Dean was cuddling and scenting with _Jimmy_ , the trans alpha. It wasn’t any worse than before, when Dean had been in bed with Jimmy, the alpha, who had been born an alpha, but somehow, this lie felt bigger. He had been presented with an opportunity to tell the truth and had decided to keep deceiving Dean.

“So…” Dean’s voice entered his thoughts. “Do you… y’know. Hate it when you slick?”

Cas sighed. Of course, Dean would be curious about these things. Cas would probably want him to ask questions like these if it wasn’t all just a lie. “No.”

“Is there anything you don’t want alphas to do when you’re… with them?”

This was ridiculous. Dean was trying to be so understanding, and the more Cas lied to him, the more hurt he might be when he found out.

Taking a deep breath, Cas began, “Dean, I… I really don’t want to be alone tonight.” He simply couldn’t bear it if Dean walked out on him right now.

“Hey, I’m right here,” Dean replied while squeezing his shoulder, unaware of what was going on inside of him.

Yes, Dean _was_ still here. Even after… everything he had learned about him today—most of it at least truth-adjacent. Dean was _always_ there for him.

Trusting alphas certainly didn’t come easy to him after everything he’d seen and everything that had been done to him by alphas, but with Dean, things were different. Dean, he could trust.

Cas closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he finally uttered the words he’d wanted to say for so long, “I’m not an alpha.”

Silence followed that statement.

Since he still had his eyes closed, the scent was the first thing that told him that Dean was, in fact, angry about that revelation. He knew it. Opening his eyes, he extracted himself from the intimate embrace and sat up in bed, his back against the headboard, to make it easier for Dean to leave.

Dean sat up too, his shoulder brushing against Cas’.

“Is that what this Mi-Mick guy told you?” Dean asked, a growl in his voice. “’cause screw him! I bet you’re more alpha than _he_ is!”

What? Oh. He still didn’t get it.

“No, you’re not listening to me. I’m an _omega_. And I… I’m not supposed to tell you, but…”

And then he did. About the alpha scent and pretending to be an alpha because that had been part of the whole relocation plan to keep him hidden. About the scars on his back and what they really stood for. About how much he had wanted to tell Dean ever since his omega had felt safe enough in the alpha’s presence.

⁂

Dean’s world shifted yet again in as many hours.

He had thought he understood what was going on when he had smelled Jimmy slick, which had thrown him for a loop, sure, but then he had used that new piece of information to make sense of what had been going on between them.

As a trans alpha, Jimmy might not have felt comfortable starting something with Dean, believing him to be omegasexual. He hadn’t just been scared of Dean seeing this as an alphasexual experiment as Dean had first suspected, but of Dean not seeing him as a ‘real’ alpha. This was ridiculous, of course, because Dean had changed his whole sexual orientation for him. They had even been about to take this thing between them one step further.

If Dean had been about to make love to an alpha, then Jimmy being trans didn’t really change anything. He tried to be understanding, though, because even though he himself had come to terms with his feelings for Jimmy, that didn’t meant that _Jimmy_ wasn’t allowed to freak out.

It probably meant that there would be no sex tonight because clearly, they needed to talk about things—what was Jimmy comfortable with, did he even _want_ Dean’s dick in his ass or did they need to find other ways to be intimate with each other?

Jimmy didn’t react well to his questions, though. After the day he’d had, Dean could understand that all he wanted to do was lie here and… cuddle a bit. Or, you know, have a manly embrace with each other. As alphas did. Or at least alphas who were madly in love with each other.

Sure, Dean wished Jimmy would have felt safe enough with him to tell him instead of Dean having to scent it out of him, but he couldn’t even begin to imagine the prejudice Jimmy had to have faced just because of who he was, and it certainly didn’t make Dean _love_ him any less for it.

So, after the shock of smelling slick where there should have been none, the world made sense again. For a little while at least.

And then it all fell apart again.

An omega. Jimmy was an _omega_!

Jimmy kept talking about how it had been part of the witness protection program and stuff, but Dean was barely listening. Changing his sexuality at his age? Hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park. And apparently, while Dean had been busy falling in love with an _alpha_ and freaking the hell out about it—he had really just fallen for an omega.

That’s when another thought hit him. One that he might have had earlier when he’d still thought Jimmy was trans, but he’d had a lot of new information to take in in one day, so his brain was still busy trying to play catch-up.

Pulling Jimmy against his side and thus interrupting him in the middle of a sentence, he scented him almost aggressively.

“Dean—what are you doing?”

Since the answer was kind of obvious (scenting, _duh_!), Dean didn’t disrupt his scenting to reply.

Now that he knew what to scent for, he could pick up on it, under layers of this stupid alpha scent. _The_ scent. His awesome-smelling omega! Dulled by the fake scent, of course, but unmistakably there. The scent he had half fallen in love with that first time he had thought Jimmy’d had someone over for his rut. But of course, he hadn’t been in rut. He’d been in _heat_!

And then there were all the times Jimmy had been gripped by an especially powerful emotion—fear mostly—when Dean had suddenly liked his scent a bit more than usual. It was almost a relief that he wasn’t attracted to the scent of _fear_ , but dammit, he should have figured something was up sooner!

Only, he’d had no reason not to trust Jimmy.

He left Jimmy’s scent gland alone to look at the _omega_ who was sitting in bed next to him.

“You’re an omega!” he repeated. He hadn’t intended for that to come out all accusing. But somehow, this was harder to swallow than the news that he was trans. Cis alpha or trans alpha didn’t really make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of things—he was still in love with an alpha. But alpha or _omega_? “You’re telling me, I changed my sexuality for you for _nothing_?!”

Jimmy blinked at him, still the same Jimmy, only now both the alpha he had fallen in love with and the omega whose scent had haunted his dreams in the best way possible. “This wasn’t easy for me either, Dean! I wasn’t _allowed_ to say anything. I’m still not, technically.”

Well, he supposed that was true. Dean really wished Jimmy had said something sooner, though, which would have saved him a lot of trouble trying to figure out _feelings_ , something he sucked at and didn’t enjoy even if it _didn’t_ include a major identity crisis.

But now that he _had_ figured out what his feelings for Jimmy were—irrespective of his secondary gender designation—it basically meant he could have his cake (Jimmy) and eat it too (his omega with the awesome scent).

Deep in thought, he hadn’t realized that neither one of them had spoken in a while. Not until Jimmy’s unease reached his nose. Either he was getting better at smelling Jimmy’s omega or it was time to reapply the alpha scent. Probably the latter, but Dean definitely wouldn’t point it out.

He looked at Jimmy, who seemed apprehensive and said, his voice barely above a whisper, “Are you going to leave now?”

There was a sad tilt to his mouth and he wrapped his arms around himself to brace himself for the answer.

In response, Dean pulled the omega back into his arms. No reason for Jimmy to have to hug himself if Dean was right there to do it. Of course, there was no way he could just walk out right now with Jimmy smelling sad and scared.

“I’m not leaving,” he said, just in case his hug hadn’t been enough of an answer. “Just… give me some time to process all of this.”

“As long as you’re processing it here,” Jimmy replied, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean was glad to smell that his apprehension was receding.

He couldn’t _wait_ to scent this omega for real, once the alpha scent wore off completely.


	21. Chapter 21

With Jimmy securely in his arms, his alpha settled down enough for Dean to think clearly. Well, ‘clearly’ might be an exaggeration since his thoughts were still pretty much a whirlwind of messy confusion. As were his emotions. Naturally, there was no way he could fall asleep right now with his thoughts running in circles like they were training for a marathon.

Jimmy—an omega. _His_ omega. Who had just pretended to be an alpha all this time because…

Wait a second.

“What did you say?”

Jimmy just snuggled against him more tightly and mumbled, “I didn’t say anything.” Then he lifted Dean’s arm, found another, more comfortable position and put it around him again.

Dean let himself be manhandled without protest, his mind still stuck on one detail it had just picked up on.

“Earlier,” he clarified. “Did you mention an omega _trafficking_ ring?” It was like the words had finally reached his brain with some delay. He should probably have listened more closely before, but his brain had been flooded with a lot of information in such a short period of time and he was still in the process of sorting through it all.

This got Jimmy to lift his head from where it was resting on his chest in order to look at him with a frown on his face. “Did you not pay attention when I told you that I don’t have a stalker ex-boyfriend?”

Busted. Luckily, Jimmy just nestled back against him, face buried in his neck.

A few minutes followed in which Jimmy haltingly whispered secrets into his neck, by the end of which Dean’s protective urges were once more stirring within him, ready to riot.

He could feel his alpha taking over, clawing his way to the surface. Even though he’d gotten mad at Mi-Mick before for hurting Jimmy, this was a whole other level of despicable evil. And Dean hadn’t been there to protect Jimmy when those alphas _paid_ to bite him and mark him against his will, just because they had been in the mood to take an omega who was drugged out of his mind and in heat.

“I’m gonna find that son of a bitch and I’m gonna _rip_ his fucking _throat_ out!” he snarled through clenched teeth. His control on his alpha was slipping away fast and he didn’t even care. “And then I’m gonna find those bastards who paid him and do the same to them!”

What was he doing, lying here in bed while there was some serious hunting to do?!

“You will do no such thing,” Jimmy replied calmly, and just when Dean was about to jump out of bed because he couldn’t just lie here when there were monsters to kill, he took Dean’s head between his hands and held his gaze. “We will let the authorities handle it. It’s their job.” His hands fell away from Dean’s face to worm their way around his midsection instead, holding on to him and thus keeping his restless alpha from leaving the bed.

Dean snorted. “You mean grandpa and baby face out there? ’Cause they seem like they’re really on top of things.”

Even though his protective instincts were still pushing him to _do_ something _right_ the fuck _now_ , Jimmy’s arms around him and his calm scent made his alpha quiet down some. Come to think of it, he really wouldn’t have the first clue where to even start looking for those monsters. Plus, his omega needed him here.

“I would much rather have you safe by my side than hurt or even dead in the name of revenge.”

That sounded like Jimmy didn’t have a lot of faith in his abilities to fight another alpha. “I could take him,” Dean insisted, sounding more petulant than he’d like to admit.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure you’re a really strong alpha who could take on a crime lord and come out unscathed.”

Dean’s alpha didn’t appreciate the mocking. “Come on, this isn’t funny. My alpha is trying to show you how tough he is. You making fun of him isn’t really helping to settle my protective instincts here.”

“I don’t need a tough alpha,” Jimmy replied. “I just need _you_. I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re tough and strong and can fight my battles for me. I fell in love with you because you’re kind and compassionate and caring.”

“Yeah, those sound like omega traits,” Dean grumbled, but deep down, he was happy to hear Jimmy describe him like that and perked up at the ‘falling in love’ part of the statement.

Jimmy ignored his interjection and went right on, “When you bought that scar cream for me and applied it because you wanted to make me feel better. When you offered to teach me self-defense so that I wouldn’t feel so helpless anymore… Those are the things that make you the most kind-hearted alpha I’ve ever known. And those are the things that really impress my omega.”

“Yeah?” Dean raised his eyebrows and grinned at the cute omega in his arms. “Your omega is impressed by me, huh?”

It had been intended as teasing because he wasn’t used to hearing those nice things said about him and he had no idea how else to react to it. Teasing was safe, a surefire way to lighten the mood and get them away from dangerous territory like having Jimmy compliment him in such an open and honest way.

But of course, Jimmy didn’t realize that the teasing remark was meant to steer them away from this topic. He just looked at Dean all earnest and sincere and said, “Very much so.”

All Dean could do was pull him snug against his side and scent him in the hope that this way, Jimmy wouldn’t see him blush.

As his nose was pressed right against Jimmy’s scent gland, he realized that the omega’s _real_ scent was finally overshadowing the annoying fake one for good.

He had to have given it away by how eagerly he was sniffing along Jimmy’s neck because Jimmy suddenly realized, “Oh. Right. I should reapply the alpha scent.”

When he tried to get up, Dean held him back. “There’s no one here to figure you out. I mean, who is going to come by at night? I’m the only one who would do that and I already know.”

Jimmy seemed to hesitate, so Dean continued, “Why not leave it off just for the night? We could engage in a little bit of scent play.” He softly stroked across Jimmy’s scent gland as he said that, delighted at the way Jimmy closed his eyes and seemed to just melt against him.

After the day they’d had, they both deserved to feel good, enjoy each other’s touch and scents.

⁂

When Dean had asked about his time as an omega slave, Cas had been exhausted from talking about it the first time—the time Dean hadn’t quite paid enough attention, apparently. But he owed Dean for all the lies, so he stumbled his way through the explanation for a second time.

Reliving parts of it really took it out of him, but it was worth getting it out in the open in the end. The reaction he got this time around was better than having Dean just ignore it altogether.

But Dean’s eyes had turned red and Cas had had to calm him down because Dean’s alpha was about ready to go search for Mike himself and get himself killed in the process.

While Cas’ omega felt ecstatic that Dean cared so much about him, there was no way he’d let the stupid alpha get himself hurt just because of some protective instincts he didn’t have under control.

Luckily, months of getting to know each other and sleeping together (platonically) paid off and he instinctively knew what to do to settle the alpha. Now that he didn’t need to suppress his omega instincts in Dean’s presence anymore, things were so much easier. His thoughts didn’t need to circle around suppressing his omega side for fear that Dean might find out.

So, when Dean suggested he should leave the alpha scent off for the night, it was actually freeing in a way and he agreed probably more readily than he should have. But Dean had a point. No one would come by in the middle of the night. It was just them, the rest of the world didn’t matter, at least not for tonight.

That’s how they ended up caressing each other while getting drunk on each other’s scents. Dean’s hands wormed their way under his shirt and traveled up and down the sides of his body, making his skin tingle and his mind forget all about his worries.

Nothing mattered but having his alpha right here with him, who accepted him and all the baggage that came with him.

As if they had some sort of psychic link, Dean’s hands started softly stroking his back, over the scars that were as much a part of him as everything else he had laid bare about himself tonight.

His heart swelled with love and affection for the alpha he was cuddling to the point he thought he couldn’t possibly bear it any longer without his heart exploding.

Luckily, Dean seemed to be able to tell and made it all better by seeking out Cas’ lips with his own in the sweetest, softest of kisses, all reassurance as well as the promise for more.


	22. Chapter 22

Dean still couldn’t believe that he had Jimmy in his arms and could scent him to his heart’s content.

At first, he had to bury his nose in Jimmy’s scent gland to try and get a whiff of his real scent, but the more time passed, the more the fake alpha scent wore off and Jimmy’s real scent started to drive him _insane_.

He alternated between kissing the omega and scenting him, moving away from the scent gland to scent him all over just because he couldn’t get enough.

After what Jimmy had been through, Dean tried to show him how good being with an alpha could feel. All of his instincts were screaming at him to be gentle with this omega, so he slowly licked into his mouth as he softly caressed his belly, getting Jimmy to squirm and push up into his touch.

Dean grinned. Found one sensitive spot.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming about this!” Dean said before moving on to lick along Jimmy’s neck while he traced patterns into his sensitive skin.

Having Jimmy underneath him in a submissive position had been his masturbatory fantasy as of late—and in reality, it was even better.

Jimmy hummed in agreement and undulated against him, baring his neck just like he had done that day in the gym when Dean had wanted to take what was offered and fuck that alpha. (Not that he had really admitted it to himself at that point, but in hindsight, a lot of things became clearer.) Nothing much had changed in that regard, only now he wanted to fuck that _omega_ whose scent was a total aphrodisiac.

Still, he didn’t want to scare Jimmy off by taking this too fast, so he made sure to keep the kisses gentle and slow.

After a while, through no fault of his own, the kisses somehow turned heated anyway. Okay, maybe through a little fault of his own, but Jimmy gave as good as he got. On top of that, he kept giving Dean these submissive omega signals that made his alpha want to just go for it and push his dick deep into Jimmy’s hole.

Maybe a little alpha seduction was in order, so that he could gauge whether Jimmy was up for some alpha-omega playtime. Dean let his hand on Jimmy’s stomach travel farther south, stopping just shy of Jimmy’s boxers, using a finger to trace the waistband before slipping underneath.

Jimmy’s scent turned sweeter with omega arousal and emboldened by it, Dean kept teasing, intent on seducing him. He continued mouthing along Jimmy’s neck, tiny love nibbles because that claim on his neck needed to be renewed right the fuck now.

Flashing back to when he’d had Jimmy by the neck the last time, he bit and licked and nibbled until Jimmy’s mating gland was all red and swollen.

At the same time, his hand kept fondling Jimmy’s belly, occasionally dipping underneath his boxers to show the omega where things were going.

In the typical gesture meant to convey that the omega was ready to be taken, Jimmy tilted his head further to the side while simultaneously opening his legs and raising his pelvis. Dean followed the invitation to slip his pants and boxers down, uncovering a beautiful cock that was already well on its way to full hardness.

Mission ‘get this omega ready to take his cock’ was a go. First step: make him crazy with wanton lust so that the inside of his ass was nice and wet.

“Dean!” Jimmy whimpered, writhing around and trying to reach any part of Dean that he could, but Dean was already scooting down so that he could lap at Jimmy’s dick and fondle his balls.

The omega bit his lower lip, but the moan slipped out regardless. The sweet scent of slick would have told Dean that his seduction technique was working anyway.

A swipe of his tongue across Jimmy’s cockhead had the omega clutching at the sheets as if he had never been blown before.

“Yes!” Jimmy panted. “Yes, please!”

If he was begging already (considering what else Dean had planned for him), Dean assumed he shouldn’t torture the guy too much, so he took the whole dick into his mouth and sucked hard. With one hand, he sought out Jimmy’s opening and started playing with it a bit, circling it a few times with one finger while making sure his touch was light and teasing.

Coaxing slick out of the omega’s hole was easy seeing how aroused Jimmy was. He wasn’t the only one. Dean’s alpha was getting impatient with the need to bury his cock in that ass.

Taking his teasing one step further, he pushed his finger past the tight ring of muscle into Jimmy’s hole. Wow! That was one nice, tight channel. He couldn’t wait to sink his cock into it and give it a good fucking.

He felt around for a bit and when he found that bundle of nerves in Jimmy’s ass, the omega’s hips bucked so hard, his dick in Dean’s mouth almost choked him. Oh yeah. This omega was ready for some alpha dick.

Dean let Jimmy’s cock slip out from between his lips, earning himself a whimper of protest. Ignoring it, he fucked his fingers into Jimmy one last time to make sure he was slick enough and then made quick work of his own clothes, freeing his poor neglected cock.

Jimmy lifted his hips slightly for better access, looking up at Dean through hooded eyes, already fucked halfway out of his mind before Dean had even had his way with him.

Guiding his cock to the omega’s hole, Dean held his gaze as he entered Jimmy for the first time. Oh yes, he was definitely slick enough.

The tight heat gripped him as he slid inside and Dean couldn’t suppress a groan in response to Jimmy’s sweet moan. When he had finally shoved the rest of his cock into Jimmy’s body, he just held still for a moment, letting Jimmy get used to the intrusion, using the time to kiss him some more.

He let his tongue enter Jimmy’s mouth to play with the omega’s tongue while his cock made itself at home inside of Jimmy’s tight little ass.

The omega felt so incredible, squeezing him in all the right places, that Dean couldn’t hold back any longer. He started to slowly fuck Jimmy, pulling back and sliding all the way back in again, pushing in and out of his slippery hole while holding on to his hips for leverage.

He could tell that Jimmy was getting close when his hips started to erratically meet his thrusts, his inner walls gripping Dean’s cock tighter still.

Wrapping a hand around Jimmy’s dick that was still slick from Dean’s spit, he gave if a few tugs. It was close to bursting, so Dean picked up his pace, fucking the omega a bit more roughly.

Jimmy let out a shaky whimper and then another desperate “please” slipped out, which made Dean drive into him faster until Jimmy threw his head back, moaning as he came. Dean caught most of Jimmy’s come in his hand and rubbed it back over his cock as he fucked him through his orgasm even as the omega’s walls clenched and released around him repeatedly.

A few more thrusts into the now pliant omega and Dean’s cock started to spasm deep in Jimmy’s hole, unloading a torrent of come into it as wave after wave of pleasure washed over him.

His knot had formed, so he drove his still-hard dick into the omega a few more times until his knot caught and his cock was spurting inside of Jimmy once more, adding to the spunk he had already deposited in his hole.

Afterwards, he made sure that he kept touching and stroking the omega, giving the aftercare that was usually reserved for very rough fuckings. But Jimmy didn’t have the best experiences with alphas, so he had to make sure he was okay with what they had just done. Plus, he _liked_ being all gentle and caring with the omega.

Thinking that he was alphasexual had at least taught him one thing: He could be the biggest softie with Jimmy if he wanted to. Didn’t make him any less of an alpha.

“You okay?” he asked, kissing Jimmy’s neck once more to show him how loved he was.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jimmy asked, squinting at him. “I just successfully seduced the alpha I’m in love with.”

Dean chuckled despite himself. “Oh, _you_ seduced _me_ , huh?”

“Why do you sound disbelieving? Your dick is in my ass, isn’t it? I would count that as a successful seduction on my part.”

“Flawless logic you got there,” Dean replied, but the sarcasm seemed to go right over Jimmy’s head.

Since the omega appeared to be really proud that his ‘seduction’ had worked, Dean decided not to correct him by explaining that it had actually been the other way around. Instead, he just enjoyed their closeness, snuggling the omega for all he was worth.

Post-orgasmic Jimmy smelled amazing, so he nuzzled into his neck to scent him some more. He could scent him all day, every day.

A thought sprung to mind then. “We should get mated,” he blurted out.

“What?” Jimmy didn’t seem nearly as excited about the brilliance of his plan as Dean was.

“We should get mated,” Dean repeated. “Then they won’t be able to separate us. If you get relocate, they’d have to relocate me with you.” That was the only way that would guarantee they could stay together.

Why was Jimmy still looking at him as if he had gone insane? The plan was beautiful in its simplicity!

After a moment of silent starting, Jimmy said, “Your life is here.”

“So? So is yours.” He didn’t say that his life was wherever Jimmy was because he knew what Jimmy meant: his job, family, friends. But if they had to move away, it wouldn’t be forever. It seemed like the better alternative than staying here, not knowing when or if he’d ever see Jimmy again.

“What about Sam?” Jimmy asked, zeroing in on Dean’s greatest weakness.

“He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself. And who knows—maybe they won’t relocate you at all. I’d just like to be prepared for if they do.”

“Dean…” Jimmy sighed. “I can’t ask you to give up your life for me.”

“Good thing you’re not asking then. I’m the one saying we should go for it.”

“You’re not thinking with your upstairs brain right now,” Jimmy said, pointedly looking down at where Dean’s cock was currently nestled inside of his ass.

“Oh, come on! I already came inside you. Believe me—my dick is satiated and doesn’t have anything to say right now.”

“Post-orgasmic stupor is a thing, especially with alphas,” Jimmy pointed out.

Dean was starting to feel rejected here. Jimmy had said he was in love with him too—so why was he so against doing everything they had to in order to stay together?

“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Jimmy asked and carefully turned onto his side so that Dean had no choice but to follow until he was spooning Jimmy from behind. “I’m really tired.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean said. He just hoped tomorrow wouldn’t be too late…


	23. Chapter 23

Waking up next to Dean that morning was different, even though they had woken up next to each other before on multiple occasions. But this time, he woke up to Dean’s protective arm around his waist, and the claim on his neck reminded him of what they had done last night.

The claim as a promise for more made him think of Dean’s suggestion. One that Cas had told him they’d discuss tomorrow. Only ‘tomorrow’ had come and everything he had tried to put out of his mind with it.

Up until he had met Dean, he had never even thought about mating. It had certainly not been anything he had ever imagined himself doing willingly. Alphas just wanted to have complete control over omegas. If you let an alpha mate you, there was bound to be a lot of pining because all of a sudden, against your will, you were bound to that alpha.

Although he had never considered that the alpha might just… be there for him, preventing any pining feelings that might arise. He was pretty sure that Dean wouldn’t just mate him and leave him to his own devices. No, with Dean, for the first time, mating didn’t seem like something to be avoided at all costs.

Making that claim on his neck permanent was maybe a bit of a frightening prospect, but in an exhilarating way. He never wanted to give Dean up, and mating was for life.

Taking in the sleeping alpha as he tightened his hold on him in his sleep, Cas felt a rush of affection wash through him. ‘For life’ sounded nice. He wanted to have this for himself so much, he physically ached for it.

But he wanted Dean to want it as much as he did. Not as a way to be prepared for his possible relocation. Certainly not if it meant putting Dean in danger.

He didn’t know what to do with the feeling of warmth and love inside of him, since it was just getting stronger the longer he was looking at Dean, so he softly placed a kiss on his forehead. In response, the alpha sighed and cuddled up closer to him, making Cas smile and kiss his cheek because the first kiss hadn’t done anything to get rid of all those… those _feelings_ inside of him that were just too overwhelming.

Oops, he might have woken the alpha up with all the kissing. Dean’s eyelids fluttered open. Almost immediately, the corners of his mouth turned upwards into a warm smile when he saw Cas.

“Hey there,” he said and pressed a quick, closed-mouth kiss to Cas’ lips.

Some morning cuddle time (and maybe more) sounded like a fantastic idea, but unfortunately, at that moment, the doorbell rang.

Since neither of them was dressed and Cas still had to apply the alpha scent, it got a bit hectic then. There was no doubt about who would check in this early in the morning, but just to make sure, Cas looked out the window first before opening the door.

Zachariah didn’t seem happy that Cas had made him wait a few minutes before answering the door. He seemed even less happy when he scented the air, no doubt smelling Dean. Cas just hoped he didn’t smell anything else—like what they had been up to.

“Was that alpha from next door here again?” Zachariah asked, straight to the point.

“No,” Cas lied like a bald-faced liar, hoping that Zachariah wouldn’t step foot in the bedroom, where he had left Dean.

Zachariah’s eyes landed on his neck, and Cas quickly fiddled with the collar of his shirt, trying to hide the very obvious proof of what he and Dean had done while the agents had guarded the house.

“Well.” Zachariah obviously wasn’t pleased, but there was really nothing he could do apart from warning him to follow the rules. “It turns out the text message was a false alarm,” he informed Cas. “It was just some beta texting his date. He apparently got fake numbered. No need for a protective detail. We’ll be on our way.”

With that, he turned around, ready to go.

“Do I get my cell phone back?” Cas called after him.

Zachariah didn’t even slow down as he replied with a terse, “No.”

And just like that, he was left to his own devices again. He should be happy about that, but there was a gnawing uncertainty left in the back of his mind. It seemed like a rather big coincidence to have gotten that text message by accident.

Of course, Balthazar said the same thing he always did, that they were close to catching Mike—which Cas assumed meant they had no idea where he even was.

At least, since there was no talk of relocation, Dean didn’t bring the whole mating idea up again, which was good because Cas didn’t know if he could be strong and selfless enough to tell him no.

He spent most of the day looking over his shoulder, expecting Mike or his henchmen to show up at any second. By the end of the day, he was starting to think that maybe the FBI had it right after all and all the agitation had been for nothing.

As a distraction, Dean made dinner and invited Sam and Benny over too.

Of course, the other alphas still had no idea what had transpired the day before, or that Cas was an omega for that matter. Obviously, Dean wouldn’t want to appear alphasexual, so Cas would have to make sure he didn’t make heart eyes at Dean and give them away.

That was easier said than done because whenever Cas was looking at Dean, he had the strangest urge to smile—and he just knew Benny and Sam would see the love and affection he had for the alpha in his eyes. Naturally, he avoided looking at Dean altogether. Since they were sitting right next to each other, he hoped no one would notice. Looking across the table at Sam or Benny was far more natural anyway.

All of that meant that he had trouble following the conversation because he was too busy pretending not to be in love with Dean. Pretending nothing had happened between them. Pretending he didn’t have butterflies in his stomach and couldn’t wait to be alone with him so that they could make out some more.

Still deep in his thoughts, he startled when Dean, who had just finished his dessert, casually took Cas’ hand—right there on the table in plain sight.

Cas finally looked over at Dean and tried to silently communicate to him with his eyes that Sam and Benny might find this kind of behavior strange. When their eyes met, Dean just smiled at him—the kind of smile Cas himself had tried to avoid at all costs. Dean might think he was being all stealthy and sneaky, but he really wasn’t.

Sure enough, Sam and Benny’s eyes were immediately drawn to their intertwined hands. That would be hard to explain.

Dean didn’t seem to have any problems explaining it away, though. He raised his eyebrows and, still with that bright smile on his face, simply said, “Yeah.”

Apparently, that cryptic behavior made sense to the other alphas. Sam grinned at them and Benny asked, “Am I supposed to act surprised?”

Dean just rolled his eyes and then leaned over to give Cas a quick peck on the lips, which left him stunned for a moment. But then things suddenly clicked into place. This had been Dean’s way of telling the others that they were involved in a romantic relationship.

It still didn’t make complete sense. Why would Dean tell them he was in a sexual relationship with him when he knew he couldn’t reveal that Cas was an omega?

The alphas didn’t seem to care, though, so when Dean squeezed his hand, he squeezed right back.


	24. Chapter 24

Taking Jimmy’s hand had been a bit unnerving. Even though Dean had known Sam and Benny for such a long time—Sam almost all of his life—he had felt all sweaty and his throat had suddenly been dry.

He wasn’t even really in a relationship with another alpha, but of course, the others couldn’t know that. More than that, though, Dean knew it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Had Jimmy been an alpha, nothing would have changed. So, in a way, taking Jimmy’s hand and acknowledging what they meant to each other had also been about showing Sam and Benny a part of himself that _he_ was still coming to terms with, which was why his heart was in his throat even though he was trying to play it cool.

They had known him as someone who’d always flirt with omegas wherever he went, someone who had no trouble picking up omegas just with the right kind of smile and a cocked eyebrow. Accepting him as anything other than omegasexual would be an adjustment for sure.

Or so he’d thought. Apparently, it wasn’t as big of an adjustment as anticipated after all.

Yes, they teased him a bit, but not because he was in love with an alpha, but because it had taken them so long to tell their friends (completely ignoring Dean’s protests that they had just gotten together last night).

In any case, this new relationship with Jimmy was exciting and amazing and Dean felt positively _giddy_ with happiness and love. He wasn’t supposed to be giddy (what kind of a feeling was that for an alpha anyway?), but he slowly started to realize that maybe he deserved this. Maybe he deserved Jimmy.

They hadn’t talked about his impromptu mating proposal, which made his alpha feel a bit rejected, but he tried telling himself that it _was_ a bit fast. Even though they had been friends for a while, they had only just added the more intimate part to their relationship.

For Dean, there was no question about it: He wanted to spend his life with Jimmy, and mating was definitely on the table for him. But maybe Jimmy needed more time to trust him completely, and now that they weren’t in danger of getting separated, he could give him as much time as he needed.

After all, they had all the time in the world…

⁂

Cas had just gotten home from work when the doorbell rang. It couldn’t be Dean—he wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours.

As it turned out, it was Bartholomew. As soon as Cas opened the door, he pushed inside, clearly agitated.

“You’re in danger. We need to go right now!”

He took Cas by the arm, but taken by surprise, his first instinct was to resist. “Where? For how long?”

There was no way he would just leave without telling Dean what was going on.

“To a safe house, no time for questions!” Bartholomew said harshly. “Mike is on his way.”

Cas’ blood ran cold at that sentence. His usual reaction in a situation like this was to ignore his fight instincts and go with his flight instincts. Out the window all those months ago, when he had first moved here and Dean had scared him half to death with his spontaneous midnight visit. Or with Bartholomew right now to get away from Mike, who might show up any second.

Still, something didn’t quite make sense here.

“Why did you come alone then?” he asked, trying to twist his arm free of the alpha’s grip, but Bartholomew only tightened his hold on him in return.

“We don’t have time for this! Do you _want_ to be sold to the highest bidder again? If not, stop being such an omega and come with me!” He made another attempt at leading Cas away.

After months of training with Dean, Cas was finally able to squash those flight instincts that were telling him to get away ASAP, and he didn’t budge, even when the tight hold on his arm started hurting a bit.

“I just need to tell Dean…” he began.

But Bartholomew interrupted him. “Come home now and he’ll let the alpha live,” he said in a low, suddenly dangerous voice.

That’s when it all clicked into place. Mike wasn’t coming. He was already _there_. Or one of his loyal alphas at least.

But he’d just made a huge mistake. No one got to threaten his Dean! He’d much rather sacrifice himself than let Dean get dragged down with him.

Mistake #2: Cas had been Mike’s possession for too long. He knew his ways. He knew that he backed out of deals all the time. If the deal was that Dean got to live if Cas went back to him quietly, what he actually meant was he’d send someone back for Dean to kill him as a lesson for Cas never to disobey him ever again.

All of that shot through Cas’ mind in the blink of an eye and made it perfectly clear what he had to do here.

No running away this time. He’d have to fight tooth and nail.

Unfortunately, Bartholomew was strong and already had a hold on him, which gave him the advantage.

Cas might actually lose here. He might never see Dean again.

He saw Bartholomew go for his gun, which would end this fight before it had even really started.

Suddenly, Dean’s voice pierced through his mind, clear as if he was standing right next to him.

 _“Stop being so damn_ polite _! In a situation like this—_ anything _goes!”_

Without thinking, he stopped trying to get away and instead moved closer as he let more memories guide him.

 _“You’re an_ alpha _! Go for the_ neck _. More biting, less hitting!”_

The second Bartholomew’s surprise bought him was enough to go for the alpha’s scent gland, one of the most sensitive spots for alphas as well as omegas, and he bit _hard_.

Bartholomew cursed as he dropped the gun, and while his hand flew to his wounded neck, Cas picked it up and pointed it at the alpha with shaking hands.

Bartholomew’s face was an angry grimace as he realized he had just lost his advantage.

Without taking his eyes off the threat, Cas took a few steps back, almost stumbling over his carpet on his way to get to the burner phone Dean had lent him as a temporary replacement for his old cell phone.

“You’re an omega,” Bartholomew growled. “You don’t have the balls to shoot me.”

He advanced on him, a predatory smirk on his face.

Mistake #3: underestimating Cas.

He pulled the trigger and a shot rang out. Bartholomew went down, clutching at his leg that was bleeding all over Cas’ floor.

“Stay down or I’m going to shoot your ass again!” Cas said with more confidence than he actually felt. But that was okay because… _“Make him think you’re stronger than he is, and he’ll leave you alone.”_

Bartholomew was gaping at him, obviously not having expected to get bested by an omega.

Cas finally got to his cell phone and sent a 911 text to Dean.

⁂

Dean was just about to call it a day and head home early (he couldn’t concentrate anyway, his thoughts coming back to Jimmy and making him smile all the damn time) when he got the text message.

He saw red (probably quite literally) as his alpha was taking over, and he rushed home, red traffic lights be damned.

So much adrenaline was coursing through his veins that he was almost disappointed when there was no need for him to get into an alpha fight when he arrived in front of Jimmy’s house with screeching tires.

The alpha he should be fighting was already on his knees.

At least he could be helpful by just being there, calming Jimmy’s nerves, and by calling the FBI—something that Jimmy had apparently forgotten all about.

Still, Dean was relieved and a little bit pleased that the omega had immediately thought of him when he had needed help. Seemed like Jimmy trusted him after all.

⁂

Dean took over watching Bartholomew, which meant that Cas could finally sink down on a chair. His wobbly legs probably wouldn’t have kept him standing for much longer.

It didn’t take long for Balthazar to arrive with yet another protective detail, which somehow wasn’t all too reassuring. It wasn’t like Cas had any reason to trust them...

“Castiel!” Balthazar hurried to him while two agents took Bartholomew into custody.

“Gesundheit,” Dean said, which made Balthazar look over to him.

“What is he doing here?” his handler asked.

“Your job,” Dean retorted before Cas could answer.

“Does it really matter?” Cas asked, ignoring Dean. “My ‘cover’ is ‘blown’ anyway.” He hoped he was using the air quotes and FBI lingo correctly.

Apparently, he was because that seemed to convince Balthazar, who went on to explain all about the new protective detail that would be there to protect him at all times, and how they would use Bartholomew to finally get to Mike.

Cas just sighed, exhausted. It seemed like he was back to worrying about relocation and losing Dean.

He hardly paid attention to what was going on around them—at some point, Bartholomew was taken away, while some other agents were still asking questions, but then, suddenly, even more alphas arrived. Sam and Benny.

“Why was I supposed to bring an overnight bag?” Benny grumbled as a greeting, while eying the agents with a suspicious glance.

“We’re setting up camp here for the night,” Dean explained, and Cas couldn’t help the rush of affection he felt for his alpha.

Dean had instinctively known exactly what Cas needed. The protective detail from the FBI was all well and good, but he needed people he could _trust_ and feel truly safe with.

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. “So what’s going on here? Jimmy? You okay?”

Taking a deep breath, Cas said, “It’s Castiel, actually.”

⁂

It was the middle of the night when Cas was woken up by Dean softly shaking his shoulder.

“Jim— _Cas_. God, that’s gonna need some getting used to.”

“Mhm?” Cas mumbled.

He wouldn’t have thought falling asleep would be so easy, but with Dean right beside him, Sam and Benny in the other room and Balthazar’s ‘most trustworthy agents’ outside, his eyes had fallen shut as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

For the first time, he had fought back against an alpha who was out to harm him, and he had _won_ , and even though it had felt absolutely fantastic, it had also been exhausting, and so Cas just turned to snuggle a bit more closely against Dean, never even opening his eyes.

“You can stay,” Dean said.

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” Cas replied sleepily, even though it didn’t make a lot of sense. Dean was the one who was in _his_ bed right now. _He_ was the one who could stay.

“No, I mean—they got him.”

Cas blinked open one eye and then opened them both when he saw Dean waving Cas’ cell phone in his face with a new message from Balthazar.

From one second to the next, all thoughts of sleep were gone. Cas had never felt wider awake.

 _Please let this be real_ , he thought, snatching the cell phone out of Dean’s hands to call back.

It turned out Bartholomew wasn’t such a loyal alpha after all, but rather interested in cutting a deal for himself. He had given Mike up as soon as he had been offered a lighter sentence.

 _“You’re free,”_ Balthazar’s voice kept echoing through his mind even when Sam and Benny, both in their pajamas, joined them for a midnight celebration in the living room.

Freedom. What a strange concept.

No more pretending. No more applying that awful alpha scent. He was free to do with his life what he wanted now.

“I’m proud of you,” Dean told him, putting an arm around him and kissing his temple.

Cas felt warmth spread through him and he smiled at Dean.

Luckily, what he wanted was right there next to him in the form of one awesome alpha.

But the best thing about all of it? Dean wanted him too. They could start their new life free of old ghosts haunting them _together_.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that’s it, another one finished. I’m kind of sad to see this one end. But I had fun with it, and I really hope at least some of you did too. If so, a comment would be awesome. ❤️
> 
> I also wrote a fic in which both Dean and Cas really are alphas: **[Mated](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25612159)**.
> 
> If you want to support me, here is the **[rebloggable tumblr post](https://destielshipper4cas.tumblr.com/post/636140749600260096/the-alpha-next-door-finished-tags-strangers-to)**.


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